
Qass "PS'i^n- 



Book. 



§Y 



THE ATHEN/EUM PRESS SERIES 

G. L. KITTREDGE and C. T. WINCHESTER 

GENERAL EDITORS 



Htbenaeum press Series. 

This series is intended to furnish a 
Ubrary of the best EngHsh Hterature 
from Chaucer to the present time in a 
form adapted to the needs of both the 
student and the g eneral reader. The 
works selected are carefully edited, with 
biographical and critical introductions, 
full explanatory notes, and other neces- 
sary apparatus. 



Btbena^um press Series 



A BOOK OF 



Elizabethan Lyrics 



SELECTED AND EDITED 



FELIX 


E. 


SCHELLING 






OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 




I 


I'll' I \l'\ 


>' I 


A 






3 'j ■•> 


')>.>"',-« 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1903 



\l''' 



A 



^^ 



Copyright, 1895 
By FELIX E. SCHELLING 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

' n 7 2. 




TO 

DOCTOR HORACE HOWARD FURNESS 

IN RECOGNITION OF MUCH KINDNESS AND ENCOURAGEMENT 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



PREFACE. 



The making of an anthology of any form of poetry is like 
the culling of a nosegay, a matter iji which selection by 
color, form, and fragrance counts for much, and arrangement 
according to taste,' prejudice, or caprice makes up the 
remainder. If this be not the method, it is likely to be 
that of the herbarium, in which appear both flowers and 
weeds with labelled completeness, in substance dull, in 
order categorical. It is too much to expect that the dis- 
advantages attending these usual methods have been wholly 
avoided in the following pages. Every collection of poetry 
must be made on a plan primarily subjective, and some one 
will always be found to disapprove, to wonder at the omis- 
sion of a favorite, or to criticise the editor's eccentricity of 
judgment. I accept with frankness all responsibility on 
this score, but hope that a diligent endeavor to become 
acquainted with the whole field of Elizabethan lyric verse, 
even in its humbler productions, together with the exercise 
of a conservative judgment in choice, may have accom- 
plished somewhat in toning any too emphatic an accentuation 
of the personal note. 

Employing the word Elizabethan in a broad sense and 
that usually accepted, this collection aims to cover the half 
century from the publication of The Paradise of Dainty 
Devises^ 1576, to the death of John Fletcher, 1625. The 
selections have been drawn from the works of individual 
authors, from "novels," plays, and masques, and from the 
poetical miscellanies, song-books, and sonnet sequences of 



ii PREFA CE. 

that age. Each selection is given entire and by preference 
in the earliest form in which it received the supervision of 
the author. Each poem, moreover, is referred to its earliest 
appearance in manuscript or print and to its probable date 
of writing ; and these facts are noted in a heading above the 
title. Later versions and variant readings are occasionally 
preferred, authority for both of which will be found in the 
notes. An order approximately chronological is maintained, 
that the collection may be representative as far as consistent 
with a standard of high lyrical excellence. 

Aside from numerous editions of Elizabethan poets and 
dramatists, many of the better collections and anthologies 
of English poetry have been consulted with reference to the 
notes and text, which latter has been collated with earlier 
editions where necessary. The editings and collections of 
Dyce, Collier, Hazlitt, Grosart, Arber, and others, although 
of unequal merit, together with the publications of the 
several literary societies, have of course been found indis- 
pensable ; and extended use has been made of Mr. Bullen's 
various books of Elizabethan songs and lyrics, collections 
that have rendered accessible much poetry till recently 
locked away in rare contemporary volumes or still rarer 
manuscripts. It need scarcely be added that my many 
debts to previous editors will be found duly recorded in the 
Notes. 

The introduction is concerned for the most part with two 
topics: (i) an account of the Elizabethan lyric of art in its 
nature, origin, and different modes, with comment on the 
authors and the literary tendencies involved; and (2) a 
consideration of the chief lyrical measures of the age from 
an organic as well as an historical point of view. The 
foreign relations of Elizabethan poetry which, in the lyric, 
were exemplified largely in the pastoral mode and in the 
fashion for sonneting and writing lyrics to be set to music. 



PREFACE. iii 

are presented mainly in the discussion of Italian forms like 
the madrigal and the sonnet. A full consideration of these 
relations and of the origins of English metres in a broader 
sense, however interesting, is considered alien to the pur- 
pose of this book. It is hoped that the Notes may furnish 
such explanatory and biographical information as may not 
be readily accessible in the usual books of reference, and 
that the indices may guide the student, or the casual reader, 
in finding such assistance as he may reasonably demand. 
It was part of the original plan to furnish in an appendix a 
bibliography of the Elizabethan lyric ; but the scope of this 
book was found unfitted to so extended an undertaking. I 
have endeavored, therefore, to supply this want by a Biblio- 
graphical Index to the Introduction and Notes, which con- 
tains a complete list of the sources and authorities on which 
this collection is based. No one recognizes more fully the 
utter futility of notes and glosses to supply taste or an 
appreciation of poetry, where taste or appreciation is want- 
ing ; and yet there seem to be times when the interpreter 
may well perform his services before the shrines of the 
oracles and translate — so far as translation is possible — 
the inspired language of "the literature of power," as 
De Quincey calls it, into the humbler terms of knowledge. 

It is my pleasure to record here my indebtedness for the 
loan and use of books to the Harvard Library, the Library 
of Columbia College, and the Philadelphia Library. Private 
treasures of Marshall C. Lefferts, Esq., of New York, of 
Jacob Sulzberger, Esq., of Philadelphia, and of Dr. Horace 
Howard Furness too have been liberally at my disposal. 
Others to whom my acknowledgments are due are the Rev. 
Richard Hooper, of Didcot, England, Churton Collins, Esq., 
of London, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia, Professor 
Gummere of Haverford College, and Professor Gayley of the 
University of California ; among my colleagues. Professor 



IV PREFACE. 

Lamberton and Dr. Gudeman. Lastly this book has been 
fortunate in the valuable and assiduous supervision of the 
general editors and in the cordial assistance in gathering and 
transcribing material which I have had at the hands of my 
more intimate colleagues of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Mr. Penniman, Mr. Homer Smith, and Mr. Quinn, Instruct- 
ors in English. 

University of Pennsylvania, 
November 19, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction : 

I. The Elizabethan Lyric vii 

II. Elizabethan Lyrical Measures . . xxxviii 

Elizabethan Lyrics i 

Notes 209 

Index of First Lines 299 

Index of Authors and Sources 309 

Index of Introduction and Notes 317 



INTRODUCTION. 

I. 

THE ELIZABETHAN LYRIC. 

While the prime conception of the term, lyric, is based 
upon the singing or song-like quality of this species of poetry 
as contrasted with the telling or epic quality of narrative 
verse, an accurate conception of the term contains another, 
perhaps even more important, consideration. The lyric is 
personal, concerned with the poet and with the interpre- 
tation of his thoughts, sentiments, and emotions. It is the 
inward world of passion and feeling that is here celebrated, 
as opposed to the outward world of sequence in time. It is 
the individual singer, dignified by the sincerity and potency 
of his art, that unfolds his own moods and emotions to our 
sympathy and understanding, not a mere voice, the instru- 
ment by which we are introduced to the protracted wander- 
ings of Ulysses or the heroic deeds of Beowulf. 

But it is not enough that the lyric deal with passion and 
emotion ; it must deal with both in their simplicity, and not 
call in, as does the drama, the strong aid of imitated action 
and heightened situation. Granting grasp and insight into 
the given mood, the success of a lyric poem will depend 
upon the poet's ability to exalt his mood to an independence 
of the ordinary considerations of time and plkce, and upon 
his fortunate treatment of the conditions Of his theme in 
fitting and musical form. The elimination of most of those 



viii INTR on uc tion. 

elements which other forms of verse possess in common 
with prose — elements, which can be justified in the lyric 
only in the degree in which they make for intelligibility — 
has led many to look upon the lyric as alone constituting 
the true essence of poetry ; the contention being that other 
forms, as the epic and the drama, are poetry only in so far 
as they contain the elements that add the soul of passion and 
the wings of song. Be this as it may, the lyric element of 
poetry is assuredly the most subtile and the most difficult 
of approach ; it is the last element mastered — if mastered 
it ever is — by those whom we commonly describe as prac- 
tical or unpoetical people ; it is the element which resides 
at the antipodes of what again we commonly describe as 
hard matter of fact.^ 

As to form, the lyric, like other varieties of poetry,Jnyolye5„, 
the presentation of thought in metrical words, but partakes, 
more of the nature — if not of the limitations — of music in 
reflectmg a mood rather than in symbolizing an event or 
presenting a picture. " Lyrical beauty," says Mr. Stedman, 
" does not necessarily depend upon the obvious repetends 
and singing-bars of a song or regular lyric. The purest 
lyrics are not of course songs ; the stanzaic effect, the use 
of open vowel sounds, and other matters instinctive with 
song-makers, need not characterize them. What they must 
have is quality. That their rhythmic and verbal expression 
appeals supremely to the finest sensibilities indicates, first, 
that the music of speech is more advanced, because more 
subtly varying, than that of song ; or, secondly, that a more 
advanced music, such as the German and French melodists 

1 We are concerned in this discussion wholly with the lyric of art, 
the criterion of which is its personality. No one will deny the existence 
in English, as in other tongues, of the impersonal Volkslyrik. See on 
this subject in general Professor Gummere's Introduction, Old English 
Ballads, Athencewn Press Series. 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

now wed to words, is required for the interpretation of the 
most poetic and qualitative lyric." ^ 

Like good poetry of all classes, the lyric must ( comb ine 
universality of feeling with unity of form. In accord with 
the first, the poem must be neither narrative nor descriptive 
to a degree which will destroy the central idea. Less than 
any other form of literature conceivable should the lyric be 
didactic ; for by the intrusion of didacticism a particular in- 
stance, with its pendent maxim, is substituted for a general 
truth, and a product of fine art degraded into a mere utility. 
Again, the lyric must present the unity of a perfect art form, 
and "each poem," as Mr. Palgrave states it, must "turn on 
some single thought, feeling, or situation." ^ It is easy to 
see that by its very conditions the lyric must be short, as an 
emotion prolonged beyond a pleasurable length will defeat 
its own artistic aim.^ 

As to another canon of "the best poetry," much trump- 
eted of late, I feel less ready to give an unqualified assent. 
Doubtless it is no light thing to say of a poem that " no 
man's gravity hath been disturbed thereby," and the touch- 
stone of "high seriousness" may perhaps be applied with 
much succes3 to that group of classical productions which 
are far more admired than read. But there is a flash in the 
play of a familiar word about a remote idea, there is a joy 
that bursts into song and a mirth which rises into the 
bubble of nonsense, all of which are highly subversive of 
gravity, and yet very often much of the salt of that " conso- 
lation and stay" which literature affords us in the rough 
places of the world. Even cynicism of mood, though often 
dangerously intellectual, need not be destructive of lyric * 

1 The N'atiire and Elements of Poetry, p. 179. 

2 Golden Treasury of English Lyrics. Preface. 

8 Cf. E. A. Poe, The Poetic Principle. Select Works, ed. 1885, p 641 
4 Cf. Donne's Song, p. 97. 



X INTR OD UC riON. 

excellence. The following pages will be found far less 
grave than those of many such collections ; and I have no 
apology to offer for the fact. 

Inasmuch as the lyric demands a grasp of the subtler 
forms of human passion and emotion, combined with a con- 
summate mastery of form and of the music of speech, it is but 
natural that all literatures should display the lyric amongst 
the latest of literary growths. Despite what must be ad- 
mitted as to an impersonal lyrical quality inhering in much 
early popular poetry, an age in which the gift of lyric 
expression is widely diffused, must be alike removed from 
the simplicity and immaturity which is content to note 
in its literature the direct effects of the phenomena of the 
outside world and no more, and from that complexity of con- 
ditions and that tendency to intellectualize emotion which 
characterize a time like our own. In an age lyrically gifted, 
we may look for innumerable points of contact between the 
spirit of the time and its literature, for the most beautiful 
and fervent thoughts couched in the most beautiful and 
fervent language ; in such an age we may expect the nicest 
adjustment and equilibrium of the real and the ideal, each 
performing its legitimate function and contributing in due 
proportion to the perfect realization of truth in its choicest 
form, beauty. Such an age was that of the Elizabethan 
Lyric, which bloomed with a flower-like diversity of form, 
color, and fragrance from the boyhood of Shakespeare to 
the accession of Charles I. 



/^ 



The Elizabethan lyric had its origin in culture, not among 
the people ; and the culture of the England of the sixteenth 
century was the culture of Italy. No one who pretended to 
gentility could afford to be ignorant of the Italian language, 
and no one who claimed politeness could ignore her litera- 
ture or her art. A familiar passage of Roger Ascham dilates 



\ 



JNl^ROD UC TION. 



XI 



upon "the enchantments of Circe, brought out of Italy, 
to mar men's manners in England, much by example of ill 
life, but more by precepts of fond books of late translated 
out of Italian into English, sold in every shop in London"; 
and laments that the young "have in more reverence the 
triumphs of Petrarch than the Geiiesis of Moses. '--^ Indeed 
even the classical mania of the day came clothed in Italian 
garb, and the classics most imitated and admired in England 
were those most esteemed in Italy. But however widely 
diffused this superficial Italianism, literary culture was in 
the earlier decades of the century confined to the society sur- 
rounding princes, and Puttenham's term for the early English 
poets, " courtly makers," is thus peculiarly fitting.^ We may 
thus disregard all earlier attempts and state that the history 
of the English lyric begins with the life of the first English 
court which felt the rays of the arisen sun of the Renaissance. 
That court was the court of Henry VIII, and TotteVs Mis- 
cella7iy\ not printed until 1557, is the treasury into ^ which 
was garnered the earliest lyrical harvest of England. The 
Earl of Surrey, Thomas Lord Vaux, Sir Thomas Wyatt, 
George Boleyn Lord Rochford, brother to the unfortunate 
Queen Anne, even Henry himself — who wrote, somewhat in- 
consistently, on constancy in love ^ — all were notable lyrical 
poets in their day ; and it is worthy of remembrance that few, 
if any, ot the lyrists of TotteVs Miscellany were not courtiers 
themselves, or not under the immediate patronage of the 
court. As time went on, however, two other influences made 

1 The Scholemaster, ed. Arber, pp. 78, 92. 

2 "And in her Majesty's time that now is are sprong up another 
crew of courtly makers, noblemen and gentlemen of her Majesty's own 
servants, who have written excellently well," etc. Puttenham, The Art 
of English Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 75. 

^ See FlUgel's Liedersammlungen des XVI. Jahrhii7tderts., besonders 
aus der Zeit Heinrich's VIII, Anglia XII, 225 f., and Chappell, Old 
English Popular Altisic, I, 42 f . 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

themselves felt in the lyric equally with other forms of litera- 
ture. If culture was derived through the social life of the 
court, the learning of the time, in which the courtiers shared 
in no mean part, was based upon a study of the ancients. No 
less were the scholars and courtiers Englishmen, and hence 
before long we find the foreign lyrical graft, strengthened 
by a real love and study of the classics, and rendered hardy 
by the infusion of a genuine vernacular spirit. The combi- 
nation of these elements, that of Italian, and, to a lesser 
degree, French and Spanish culture, classic, especially 
Roman learning, assimilated to English feeling and manner 
of thought, give us the literary spirit of the age of Elizabeth. 
In TotteVs Miscellaiiy and The Paradise of Dainty Devices^ 
with the possible addition of Clement Robinson's A Ha7id- 
ful of Pleasant Delights^ will be found the bulk of the better 
lyrics written before the accession of Queen Elizabeth. 
These collections are representative because they are the 
product of contemporary educated taste, selecting and 
choosing from a considerable mass of material already 
popular with a limited but cultivated audience of readers. A 
wide diffusion of the gift of lyrical composition is always 
accompanied by a far wider diffusion of appreciation for 
lyric art. The work of these earlier miscellanies was prentice 
work, much of it ; but prentice work on good models and 
not infrequently intrinsically of no mean standard. Many 
of the older poets, such as Hunnis, Edwards, and the Earl 
of Oxford, all contributors to The Paradise, and others, such 
as Turberville, Googe, and Gascoigne, lived well into Eliza- 
beth's reign, and did their part towards preparing the way 
for the glorious outburst of song which followed the publica- 
tion of The Shepherds' Calendar in 1579. 

Few sovereigns have witnessed such social and literary 
changes as Queen Elizabeth ; indeed, the changes of half a 
century in many other ages have scarcely equalled the strides 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

of a single decade in this singularly quickened time. This 
was more striking in literature than in almost any other 
field of activity. Elizabeth had gone to school to excellent 
Roger Ascham in childhood and laughed at the rude clever- 
ness of Heywood the epigrammatist ; she had sonneted in 
limping Poulter's measure in young womanhood ; and lived 
to receive the literary homage of men like Sidney, Spenser, 
and Raleigh and to know the glories of the Shakespearean 
drama in the height of its splendor. 

There is reason for placing the beginning of the Eliza- 
bethan outburst of lyrical poetry at 1575. In that year 
George Gascoigne, the most important literary figure 
between Surrey and Spenser, was still at the height of a 
popularity which seems to have been considerable, and 
which was based very largely upon a happy lyrical vein 
and a ready metrical facility. Gascoigne died two years 
later, and few of his poetical contemporaries long survived 
him, if we except Whetstone and Churchyard, who are 
both distinctly unlyrical, if not unpoetical. To this we 
may add the fact that, in 1576, The Paradise of Dainty 
Devices gathered up what was then regarded as the choicest 
lyrical poetry of the period just concluded. On the other 
hand, in 1575, Spenser, Greville, Lodge, Greene, and 
Harvey, the classical mentor of Spenser, were already at 
Cambridge, whilst Lyly, Peele, and Watson remained at 
Oxford, which Sidney had just quitted to be introduced at 
court and to proceed upon his foreign travels. The influ- 
ences that made these men poets were thus at work while 
they were students at the Universities ; for, setting aside 
the case of Spenser's contributions to The Theatre of Volup- 
tuous Worldlings, in 1569, which not even Dr. Grosart's 
zeal has rendered wholly unapocryphal,^ we know from the 
letters between the two that Harvey and Spenser were much 

1 See his ed. of Spenser, I, 15-23. 



xiv JNTR OD UC TIOiY. 

interested in poetry at Cambridge well before the eighties ; ^ 
and it is likely that Lodge at least, if not Greene and Watson, 
began to write before their departure for London. Within 
the ten years that followed, each of the authors mentioned 
had made a name for himself in literature. 
,/ The decade, 1580-1590, may be regarded as the period 
of the supremacy of the pastoral. During this period The 
Shepherds^ CaletidarTccvA Sidney's Arcadia (although the latter 

1 was not printed until 1590) were the most pervasive literary 
influences. Euphues could alone question the supremacy of 
these works, and Euphues^ though not a pastoral, fell in with 

I the prevailing fashion in not a few particulars. At court, 
too, Lyly and Peele were cultivating a species of the drama, 
which, if largely classical in subject, was often pastoral in 
form, in imagery, and the use of allegory. (E.g., Peele's The 
Arraignment of Paris or Lyly's Gallathea.) The Arcadia 
is full of lyrical verse ; but Sidney is scarcely here at his 
best, and there was in him a finer lyrical chord which 
thrilled in the rich music of Astrophel and Stella. Though 
surprisingly successful, especially in longer and statelier 
pastoral lyrics (cf. the Canzon Easto?-al in honor of Eliza- 
beth, and the Dirge for the Shepherdess Dido, in April 
and November respectively, of the Shepherds'' Cale?tdar), 

\ Spenser too was so much more, that to him the pastoral 
lyric became little beyond a passing mood. Notwithstand- 
ing then that to these two great poets the prevalence of 
the mode is due, we must look to others for the more 
limited and distinctive development of the pastoral lyric : 
whether displayed in the dainty songs interspersed through 
the dramas of Lyly and Peele, in the equally beautiful 
amorous verse of the romances of Lodge and Greene, or 
in the charming little idyls of Breton's poetical booklets. 

1 These letters were published by Harvey in 1 580. See Dr. Grosart's 
ed. of Harvey. 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

In the poetry of these men, and some few others, such as 
Marlowe, Constable, Munday, and Barnfield in individual 
poems, will be found the perfection of the English pastoral 
lyric : its simplicity and insouciance^ its music and metri- 
cal feUcity, its sweet pathos and tenderness, its delicate 
and artistic artificiality united with a genuine joy in the 
beauties of nature. Of the forms of this class of lyrics 
I shall have occasion to speak elsewhere ; ^ but I cannot 
refrain from here urging all true lovers of poetry not to 
neglect to read such exquisite lyrical artists as Greene, 
Lodge, and Breton — the last two, even now only too little 
known, and unobtainable in popular form.^ The pastoral 
mode continued in vogue to the end of Elizabeth's reign 
and beyond, but in the following decades it ceased to be 
the dominant lyrical strain. 

But if this decade is superficially the period of the 
pastoral, there is in its poetry a deeper undertone not 
only in the artistic seriousness of Spenser, but in the 
sincerity and passion of Sidney. In Sidney is struck, 
for the first time unmistakably, that individual note, that 
intense and passionate cry of the poet's very heart, that was 
thenceforth to be the distinctive mark of the great literature 
of Elizabeth. Lamb and Ruskin have united to lavish upon 
the poetry of Sidney the most enthusiastic praise : and few 
who know him well, will think this praise excessive. In the 
lyric poetry too of Sidney's friend, Fulke Greville — the 
period of the writing of which is doubtful, although probably 
contemporaneous with Sidney — there is a new and inde- 
pendent spirit, a widening of the sphere of the lyric theme 
to include non-erotic sentiment, and an all but complete 

1 See the second part of this Introduction. 

2 But see the scraps frora the verse and prose of Greene and of 
Breton, recently published by Dr. Grosart, The Elizabethan Library ^ 
London, 1893 ^"^ 1894. 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

abandonment of the classic imagery and allusion which long 
continued elsewhere to be one of the chief excrescences of 
the ornate and elaborated style of the time. Far different 
in this respect is the poetry of Watson and Barnes, who 
continue the Italian impulse given to English poetry by 
Sidney, as Greville continued his strength, if not his fervor 
of thought. Both the former poets exhibit, with the more 
strictly pastoral lyrists just mentioned, that "passionate 
delight in beauty" which forms the "inspiring motive" 
of all the renaissance poets. In the words of Professor 
Dowden, who is writing, apropos of Barnes, of this class 
of poets in general : 

" They do not need ideas, or abstractions, or memories of 
the past or hopes for the future; it suffices them to be in 
presence of a bed of roses, or an arbor of eglantine, or the 
gold hair of a girl, or her clear eyes, bright lips, and little 
cloven chin, her fair shadowed throat, and budding breasts. 
She shall be a shepherdess, and the passionate shepherd 
will cull the treasures of earth, and of the heaven of the 
gods of Greece and Rome to lay them before her feet. . . . 
It is not only the Renaissance with its rehabilitation of 
the senses which we find in these poems ; there is in them 
also the Renaissance with its ingenuity, its fantasticality, 
its passion for conceits, and wit, and clever caprices and 
playing upon words. With this it is harder and perhaps 
not wholesome to attempt to enter into sympathy." ^ 

The next decade, the last of the sixteenth century, is 
the time of the sonnet, long since introduced into English 
literature by Sir Thomas Wyatt and practiced in greater 
or less imitation of Italian models by his immediate 
successors, but not rendered a power until the masterly 
grasp of Astrophel afid Stella^ the earliest sonnet sequence 
in the language. Though written much earlier, this work 

1 The Acade?ny, Sept. 2, 1876. 



INTR OD UC TION. xvii 

did not appear in print until Nashe's quasi-surreptitious 
edition of 1591. This included not only Sidney's sequence, 
but " sundry other rare sonnets of divers noblemen and 
gentlemen," notably twenty-seven sonnets of Samuel Daniel, 
who was then traveling abroad. Daniel resented this 
premature publication of his work, and in the following 
year put forth a true edition of his Delia, which included 
the sonnets published by Nashe, and others. Constable's 
Z>/^;2(^-appeared in the same year and enjoyed a remarkable 
popularity. With this, sonneteering became the fashion, and 
sequence after sequence, in repeated editions, issued from 
the press. After Sidney, Daniel, and Constable, the last 
of whom subsequently wrote Spiritual So7i?iets to the Honor 
of God and His Saints, and thus first turned the sonnet to 
"divine uses," came in 1593 Lodge's Phyllis, Watson's Tears 
of Fancy, Barnes' Parthe?iophil and Parthenophe, mixed with 
other lyric forms as were many of these collections, Drayton's 
Idea and Dr. Giles Fletcher's Licia. In 1594, appeared 
Percy's Coilia and the anonymous Zcpheria; in 1595, Barn- 
field's Cynthia, Chapman's A Coronet for his Mistress Philos- 
ophy, and Barnes' A Divi7ie Centu?y of Spiritual Sonnets; 
in 1596, Griffin's Fidessa, Smith's Chloris, Lynche's Diella, 
and, most perfect of all, Spenser's Amoretti. Sonnets of 
Shakespeare were well known, as Meres tells us, before 1598 ; 
Breton's The Soul's Harmony appeared in 1600, Sir John 
Davies' Sonnets to Philoinel in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, in 
1602 ; Donne's Holy Sonnets and Alexander's Aurora remain 
of uncertain date. Other works are frequently included in 
this list : as Watson's Passionate Century of Love, which was 
not written in quartorzains and falls too early to have been 
affected by the prevalent mode ; J. C.'s Alcilia and Greville's 
Ccelica, neither of which preserves the sonnet form although 
both are sequences ; and Breton's Arbor of Amorous Devices, 
which, though containing some few sonnets, is not a 



X viii INTR ODUC TION. 

sequence properly speaking. Willoughby's Avisa from its 
stanzaic structure, dialogue form, and satiric intent, not only 
belongs without the category of sonnets, but is not lyrical. 

It will be noticed that these sonnet sequences fall natur- 
ally into certain well defined groups. The vast majority 
are devoted to the celebration of the passion of love : 
some, as Sidney's, Drayton's, Spenser's, and Shakespeare's, 
suggesting by means of successive lyrical moods a more or 
less connected love story, of greater or less probable basis 
in fact ; another class dealing with the praises of a mistress 
or lamenting her hardness of heart as Phyllis^ Cynthia, and 
Diana or Watson's Tears of Fancy. Yet another class are 
little more than loosely connected series of amatory verse, 
as Breton's Arbor or J. C.'s Alcilia; or even collections of 
poems amatory and other, as Greville's Ccelica, having noth- 
ing in common with the sonnet except a certain unity of 
thought and brevity of form. On the much discussed ques- 
tion of the subjective significance of these sequences, I do 
not feel called upon to write here. Suffice it to say that in 
these cases it is as easy to interpret mere lyrical hyperbole 
into a chro7iique scandaleuse as it is tempting to etherialize 
real human passion into what Mr. Walter Bagehot called in 
a different connection "evanescent mists of lyrical energy." 

The convenient length of the sonnet early suggested 
its use as occasional verse (cf. Raleigh's sonnet prefixed 
to The Faery Queen, or Barnfield's In Praise of Music 
and Poetry, p. 87), a use which continued throughout the 
period. Lastly, we find Constable, Barnes, Breton, and 
Donne turning the form to the expression of religious emo- 
tion in sequences of " Divine Sonnets." (For examples, 
see Barnes' Talent, and Donne's sorm^X' To Death, pp. 81 
and 142.) Chapman's A Coronet for his Mistress Philos- 
ophy is probably the earliest attempt to write a son- 
net sequence neither devotional nor amatory. Although 



IN TR on UC TION. xix 

the sonnet continued a popular form during the remainder 
of the reign of Elizabeth and that of her successor, except- 
ing the work of William Drummond, a scholarly poet, who 
lived much in the past, and series like William Browne's 
Ccelia and Visions, the writing of sonnet sequences went out 
of the literary fashion with the close of the former reign. 
The old sequences, however, continued in popularity, as 
the frequency of later editions attest, up to the time of 
Withers' PhiV arete and Habington's Castara, erotic sequences 
eschewing the sonnet form altogether. 

Notwithstanding the surprising excellence of even the 
minor sonneteers of the time, the Elizabethan sonnet is a 
peculiarly restricted product, with its fixed form and a theme 
for the most part limited and conventionalized to a definite 
method of treating a single passion. Shakespeare recog- 
nized this, and, although himself not above practicing all 
these subtle arts and wiles, and outdoing the sugared similes 
and rapturous hyperboles of the sonnet tribe, did not hesi- 
tate to ridicule the school and its follies in the honest, direct 
sonnet, beginning : 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, 
Coral is far more red than her lips red ; 

and ending 

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 
As any she belied with false compare.^ 

Less known, though scarcely less excellent of its kind, is 
Chapman's rebuke, the first of his sonnets to " his Mistress 
Philosophy," which I quote here as representing the attitude 
of the more serious minds of the age towards the excessive 
ornament and eroticism of the time : 

1 See p. 8y. 



XX ZA^TV? OD UC TION. 

Muses that sing Love's sensual empery, 
And lovers kindling your enraged fires 
At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye, 
Blown with the empty breath of vain desires, 
You that prefer the painted cabinet 
Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye, 
That all your joys in dying figures set, 
And stain the living substance of your glory, 
Abjure those joys, abhor their memory. 
And let my love the honored subject be 
Of love, and honor's complete history ; 
Your eyes were never yet let in to see 
The majesty and riches of the mind, 
-. But dwell in darkness ; for your god is blind. ^ 

This limitation of the sonnet in subject and treatment led 
to no little repetition. Indeed, many sonnets were written 
in avowed competition, as the well-known series of tourna- 
ment sonnets, as they are called, on Sleep,^ on Death, the 
Flight of Time, and others. I believe that an examination 
of the entire literature of the Elizabethan sonnet, with respect 
to subject and sentiment, would result in the discovery of 
an unusual number of such parallels, and exhibit, to an 
extent scarcely yet recognized, that the versatility of much 
of this species of poetry is a versatility of expression, not 
a versatility of thought. 

The cultivation of the sonnet had, on the other hand, a 
beneficial effect on the English Lyric, as it demanded a greater 
attention to the minutiae of form, a greater regard for unity, 
and, from the somewhat dignified tread of its decasyllables, 
a greater care in the molding of the thought of the lyric in 
distinction from the quality of mere song. In the hands of 
Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, and Shakespeare, the sonnet reached 

1 Works of Chapman., Poems and Minor Translations, ed. 1875, p. 38. 

2 See note on Care-charmer Sleep, p. 234. 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

an artistic height which was not surpassed until the con- 
ception of the scope of its subject was widened, and the beauty 
of the stricter Petrarchan form was reasserted by Milton, to 
be practiced by Wordsworth and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

But, as in the case of the pastoral fashion, there were 
other currents of lyrical production, less directed by the 
conventionalities of the moment. Spenser aside, whose 
elaborated state does not lend itself readily to the shorter 
lyric, and whose singing robes are stiff with tissue of 
gold, wrought work, and gems inlaid, and Shakespeare, 
also, whose non-dramatic Muse is dedicated to thought- 
ful sonnet and mournful threnody, as well as to the 
sprightlier melodies of love, wine, and merriment, the 
most important poetical influence of this decade is that of 
that grave and marvelous man. Dr. John Donne. I would 
respectfully invite the attention of those w^ho still persist 
with Dr. Johnson in regarding this great poet as the founder 
of a certain " Metaphysical School of Poetry,"^ a man all but 
contemporary with Cowley, and a writer harsh, obscure, and 
incomprehensible in his diction, first to an examination of 
facts which are within the reach of all, and, secondly, to an 
honest study of his works. Ben Jonson told Drummond ^ 
that " Donne's best poems were written before he was 
twenty-five years old," i.e., before 1598, and Francis Davison, 
apparently when collecting material for his Poetical Rhapsody 
in 1600, includes in a memorandum of " MSS. to get," cer- 
tain poems of Donne. ^ The Carews, Crashaws, and Cowleys 
begin at least thirty years later, and, be their imitations of 
Donne's characteristics what they may, Donne himself is an 
Elizabethan in the strictest possible acceptation of that 
term, and far in fact as in time from the representative of a 

1 Lives of the English Poets, ed. Tauchnitz, I, 1 1 . 

2 Conversations, Sh. Soc. Pub., p. 8. 

. 3 Poetical Rhapsody, ed. Nicolas, p. xlv. 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

degenerate and false taste. It is somewhat disconcerting 
to find an author whom, like Savage Landor in our own 
century, the critic cannot glibly classify as the founder of 
a school or the product of a perfectly obvious series of 
literary influences. Donne is a man of this difficult type. 
For, just as Shakespeare touched life and man at all points, 
and, absorbing the light of his time, gave it forth a hun- 
dredfold, so Donne, withdrawn almost wholly from the 
influences affecting his contemporaries, shone and glowed 
with a strange light all his own. 

Few lyrical poets have ever rivaled Donne in con- 
temporary popularity. Mr. Edmund Gosse has recently 
given a reason for this, which seems worthy of attention, 
while by no means explaining everything. " Donne was, I 
would venture to suggest, by far the most modern and con- 
temporaneous of the writers of his time. . . . He arrived 
at an excess of actuality of style, and it was because he 
struck them as so novel, and so completely in touch with 
his age, that his immediate coevals were so much fascinated 
with him." ^ A much bequoted passage of the Conversations 
with Drummond informs us that Ben Jonson " esteemeth 
Donne the first poet in the world in some things." ^ An 
analysis of tliese "some things," which space here forbids, 
will, I think, show them to depend, to a large degree, upon 
that deeper element of the modern lyric, poetic insight ; the 
power which, proceeding by means of the clash of ideas 
familiar with ideas remote, flashes light and meaning into 
what has hitherto appeared mere commonplace. This, 
mainly, though with much else, is the positive originality of 
Donne. A quality no less remarkable is to be found in 
what may be called his negative originality, by which I 
mean that trait which caused Donne absolutely to give over 

1 The /aco bean Poets, p. 64. 
- Conversations, as above, p. 8. 



INTRODUCTION. xxiii 

the current mannerisms of his time ; to write neither in the 
usual Italian manner, nor in borrowed lyrical forms ; indeed, to 
be at times wantonly careless of mere expression, and, above 
all, to throw away every trace of the conventional classic 
imagery and mannerisms which infected and conventional- 
ized the poetry of so many of his contemporaries. It seems 
to me that no one, excepting Shakespeare, with Sidney, Gre- 
ville, and Jonson in lesser measure, has done so much to 
develop intellectualized emotion in the Elizabethan lyric as 
John Donne. But Donne is the last poet to demand a 
proselyting zeal of his devotees, and all those who have 
learned to love his witching personality will agree to the 
charming sentiment of his faithful adorer, Izaak Walton, when 
he says: "Though I must omit to mention divers persons, 
friends of Sir Henry Wotton ; yet I must not omit to 
mention of a love that was there begun betwixt him and 
Dr. Donne, sometime Dean of Saint Paul's ; a man of whose 
abilities I shall forbear to say anything, because he who is 
of this nation, and pretends to learning or ingenuity, and is 
ignorant of Dr. Donne, deserves not to know him." ^ 

But in the great age of Elizabeth, miracles were not the 
monopoly of the immortals. Strenuous Titans, such as 
those that wrought poetical cosmos out of the chaos of 
Barons' Wars or Civil Wars, out of disquisitions on state- 
craft and ponderous imitations of Senecan rhetoric, could 
also work dainty marvels in song. The lyrics of that most 
interesting and "difficult" of poets, Fulke Greville, have 
already been noticed, and are the more remarkable in their 
frequent grace of fancy, uncommon wit, originality, and real 
music of expression in that they are the sister products of the 
obscure and intricate musings and the often eccentric didac- 
ticism of Mustapha and Alaha7n. Of Daniel, a conscientious 
artist as he was a sensible theorist in verse, we might expect 
1 Life of Wotton, Lives, etc., Amer. ed., 1846, p. 136. 



xxi V INTR OD UC TION. 

the delicacy and elegance of the consummate lyrist ; but far 
more extraordinary does it seem that the Drayton of later 
years should have continued well skilled in the lighter lyrical 
touch. It would be difficult to find a more perfect union of 
artistic feeling with fervent passion than is contained in 
" I pray thee leave, love me no more," or in the finished 
variation of the same theme in sonnet form : " Since 
there's no help."^ In quite another sphere, Drayton has 
achieved the best war-song of his age, if not of English litera- 
ture, the familiar Ode to the Cainbro-Britans on the Battle 
of Agincourt.^ 

The real or affected reluctance of courtiers and gentlemen 
to permit their poetical productions to appear in print, led 
early to the practice of keeping poetical commonplace-books, 
in which the lover of poetry was accustomed to copy out, 
for his own pleasure and remembrance, such verses as met 
his fancy. These manuscript books are very numerous, 
and often afford us not only variant readings of well- 
known poems, but occasionally verses of great value not 
elsewhere to be found. As the riumber of those who read 
poetry increased, two changes came about : the poetical 
commonplace-book was printed, and became the anthology, 
or miscellany, as they then called it ; and, secondly, as 
necessity at times pressed upon the broken gentleman, the 
literary hack was evolved, in such men as Churchyard and 
Breton, possibly in Nicholas Grimald himself. In character, 
the Elizabethan poetical miscellanies differ widely ; from a 
selection of verse, strictly lyrical, the work of various 
authors, to work of very mixed character, and even to mere 
collections of poetical quotations. The miscellanies, more 
strictly so-called, after The Paradise of Daijtty Devices, are 
A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallatit Inveiitions, 1578; Britton's 
Bower of Delights, a pirated work including amongst much 
1 See pp. 194, 196. 2 See p. 136. 



INTRODUCTION. xxv 

else poems of Nicholas Breton, 1591 ; The Phoenix' Nest, 
an interesting collection, including much of Breton's and 
Lodge's, and of unknown editorship, 1593 ; The Passion- 
ate Pilgrim, another pirated work, containing poetry by 
Shakespeare, Barnfield, Griffin, Raleigh, Marlowe, and others, 
1599 ; EnglancVs Helicon, possibly the richest and most 
representative of all, projected by John Bodenham, who was 
concerned in several other like ventures,i6oo ; and, in 1602, 
Francis Davison's admirable Poetical Rhapsody. Less strictly 
anthologies are the appendix to Chester's Love's Martyr, 
The Turtle and Phoenix, 1601, including poems by Shake- 
speare, Jonson, Marston, and Chapman ; and collections 
of extracts like Belvedei-e or the Garden of the Muses and 
England's Parnassus. Munday's Banquet of Dainty Con- 
ceits, an inferior production published in 1588,^ and Breton's 
Arbor of Ainorous Devices, 1593-94, are the work of their 
respective editors, who appear to have traded on titles 
usually employed to convey the idea of an anthology by 
various authors. After the death of the queen, few new 
miscellanies appeared, although, as in the case of the 
sonnet, the old miscellanies continued to be republished. 
Such miscellanies as were printed in the reign of James are 
mostly indiscriminate collections of ballads, lyrics, , and 
occasional verse. The lyrical anthology, in a word, had gone 
out of the fashion, and other collections, especially those of 
songs and madrigals, generally with the music attached, took 
their place in the popular esteem. 

As might be expected, the earlier miscellanies, which it 
must be emphasized were the product of an educated literary 
taste in selection, reflect the prevailing fashions in poetry of 
these two decades. In England's Helicon (the poetry of 
which though published in 1600 was written far earlier) 
there is still not a little affectation of shepherds and shep- 
1 This I have not been able to procure. 



XX vi INTR OD UC T/ON, 

herdesses, whilst The Poetical Rhapsody, which represents 
poetry for the most part written a dozen years later, is full 
of sonnets and madrigals. In The Phoenix' Nest, England's 
Helico7i, and Davison's Rhapsody will be found much of the 
choicest lyrical poetry prior to the accession of James I ; 
including, besides a considerable body of verse the author- 
ship of which it is difficult or impossible to identify, work by 
almost every important lyrical poet of the age. Except for 
some minor names, the miscellanies published before 1600 
exhibit only the work of tried and successful authors. It 
was different with Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, which in- 
cludes, besides work of this character, much that was new, as 
Davison's own beautiful poetry, distinguishable by its erotic 
fervor and directness, that of his two brothers, of Sir John 
Davies, of Donne, Sylvester, Sir Henry Wotton, Campion, 
and much anonymous verse. Altogether this collection 
most fittingly opens a new period. 

Taking the list of Elizabethan song books compiled by 
Mr. Davey in his excellent History of English Music,^ 1895, 
I find that out of eighty-five song books of known date of 
publication, falling between Byrd's Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs 
of Sadness a?id Piety, 1587, and Pilkington's Second Set of 
Madrigals, 1624, sixty-six appeared between 1595 and 161 5, 
and more than half of these in the central decade 1600-10. 
This seems to establish the fact that, upon the waning of the 
fashion for sonnets, the attention of the minor lyrists was 
directed chiefly to the writing of songs for music. 

In a contemplation of the preeminence of the literature 
under consideration, we are apt to forget that other arts too 
came in to share in the vigorous life and aesthetic activity 
that distinguished this most fortunate of ages. This is not 
the place for more than a word as to the popular love of 
music and the general culture of it as an art in the England 

1 P. 172. 



INTRODUCTION. xxvii 

of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This popularity 
is witnessed by a long and honorable list of trained musicians 
and composers, and by the considerable number of their 
compositions which have been handed down to us. The 
estimation in which such men were held may be seen in 
Barnfield's sonnet To Music and Poetry (p. 87). That other 
nations have long since outstripped England in music, and 
that an entirely new school has gone on to achievements 
utterly undreamed of in this simple age of lutes and virginals, of 
madrigals and three-part catches, will not alter the historical 
fact that the English were a very musical people in the days 
of Henry VIII, of his children and their successor.^ Our 
present interest in this popularity of a sister art is confined 
to the impetus which it seems to have given to the writing 
of lyrics to be set to music ; for the Elizabethans were very 
particular as to the artistic quality of the words of their 
songs ; and did not consider, as we, that any nonsense is 
good enough to sing. 

There is a large amount of this literature ; and, although 
much of it was either literally translated from Italian or at 

1 " During the long reign of Elizabeth, music seems to have been in 
universal cultivation, as well as universal esteem. Not only was it a 
necessary qualification for ladies and gentlemen, but even the city of 
London advertised the musical abilities of boys educated in Bridewell 
and Christ's Hospital, as a mode of recommending them as servants, 
apprentices, or husbandmen. . . . Tinkers sang catches ; milkmaids 
sang ballads ; carters whistled ; each trade, and even the beggars, had 
their special songs ; the base-viol hung in the drawing room for the 
amusement of waiting visitors ; and the lute, cittern and virginals, for 
the amusement of waiting customers, were the necessary furniture of 
the barber's shop. They had music at dinner ; music at supper ; music 
at weddings ; music at funerals ; music at dawn, music at night. . . . 
He who felt not, in some degree, its soothing influences, was viewed as 
a morose, unsocial being, whose converse ought to be shunned and 
regarded with suspicion and distrust." Chappell, Old Ettglisk Popular 
Music, i. 59. See also Galliard's Cantatus, 1720, Preface. 



xxviii INTRODUCTION. 

least inspired by Italian models, the words as well as the 
music, there was yet some scope for originality. Considering 
all things, the literary worth of the Elizabethan song books 
is surprisingly great. It is the opinion of Mr. Bullen, who is 
certainly best entitled to speak on this subject, that " as a 
rule composers are responsible only for the music " of the 
song books published under their names. In consequence 
much of this beautiful verse remains unidentified as to 
authorship. Certain it is, however, that some of the com- 
posers were likewise poets. This is notably the case with 
Dr. Thomas Campion, a most accomplished and versatile 
man, at once a physician, a musician, a critic, and a lyrical 
poet of rare order in Latin and English verse. Mr. Bullen, 
to whose untiring zeal and industry we practically owe the 
rediscovery of Campion, ranks that poet with Shelley and 
Burns as a lyrist ; adding " for tenderness and depth of 
feeling, for happiness of phrase and for chaste, artistic per- 
fection he is supreme. ... As we read Campion's lyrics 
we feel that the poet could without effort beat out of our 
rough English speech whatever music he chose. ... To 
every varying mood the lyre-strings are responsive. Never 
a false or jarring note ; no cheap tricks and mannerisms ; 
everywhere ease and simplicity,"^ Whether this seem the 
pardonable over-estimate of a discoverer or not, few poets 
have surpassed Campion in the highest quality of the song- 
writer : the writing of words that sing. Although not among 
the greater masters that have wrought most deeply in 
thought and emotion. Campion may take his place beside 
Herrick and Ben Jonson in lighter vein as one of the best 
Anacreontic lyrists in the language. 

But the lyrics set to music were not confined to collections 
of airs, songs, or madrigals by musicians like Byrd, Dowland, 
Campion, and Jones ; they flourished in the drama and in 

1 Preface to More Lyrics, etc., p. vL 



INTRODUCTION. xxix 



the masque, which latter in the hands of Jonson and Daniel 
assumed a new dignity and beauty. The songs of the 
dramatists have long been recognized as amongst the best of 
English lyrics. Beginning with the rollicking old drinking song 
of Ganuner Gurton' s Needle, "Back and side go bare, go bare," 
which it is delightful to believe was the work of a prospective 
bishop, the practice of enlivening the drama v/ith songs and 
other lyrics continued until developed into a consummate 
art in the hands of Lyly, Dekker, and Shakespeare. Indeed 
even with Shakespeare setting the standard, it is amazing 
what lyrics far lesser men could produce : Anthony Munday, 
an obscure and fertile literary hack, reeling out volume after 
volume of ordinary verse and yet more ordinary prose, yet 
reaching once or twice a rare level, which shall preserve his 
name from oblivion ; Thomas Heywood, facile and most 
productive of dramatists, visited at moments by the golden 
touch of lyric inspiration ; Thomas Nashe, the redoubtable 
" English Aretine," with the swagger of a bully in almost all 
his prose, yet leaving us but too few of the purest and 
saddest of lyrics ; Thomas Dekker, whose life was spent in 
alternation between the debtor's jail and the lower London 
theatres, in unremitting drudgery under the usurious, pawn- 
broking prince of the Elizabethan dramatic sweating system, 
Richard Henslowe, singing like a lark of " sweet content " 
and " golden numbers." Little wonder that such men should 
lament at times that "Virtue's branches wither, Virtue 
pines," or ask in heart-rending accents : " O sorrow, sorrow, 
say where dost thou dwell ? " 

Owing to the wide popularity of the drama, these lyrics 
are far less the reflection of foreign models than the collec- 
tions of the writers of madrigals ; but they reflected the 
immediate fashion in poetry even more faithfully. Thus 
the songs, interspersing the plays of Lyly and Peele, par- 
took more or less of the pastoral and classical spirit preced- 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

ing 1590; whilst the earliest comedies of Shakespeare 
exhibit the effects of the "humor" for sonnets.^ The play- 
wrights, however, almost at once perceived the need of a 
wider scope of sentiment than was to be found in the 
pastoral mode, and recognized the superior excellence of 
shorter and sprightlier metrical forms over the slow-paced 
sonnet. Hence we find the songs of the dramatists vying 
in wealth of fancy and originality of form with the best 
work of other lyrists. With the exception of Shakespeare, 
whose lyrics, like all else that his hand touched, are beyond 
comparison, no Elizabethan poet has produced so large a 
number of exquisite songs as John Fletcher. His work 
of this class displays the same facile grace and ease of 
expression, the same mastery of effect combined with a 
complete absence of effort that form the distinctive traits of 
his dramatic works. Fletcher is not startling, nor very 
original perhaps, but he has done what many have tried 
and failed to do: he has united all but perfect beauty to all 
but perfect naturalness. But Fletcher was not alone in this 
or in the other graces that adorned the poetry of his age : 
the gift of lyric song was general amongst the dramatists as 
amongst other poets. From Chapman and Marston ^ alone 

1 " In Love's Labour's Lost" says Mr. Fleay, " he not only introduces 
two sonnets proper which were published separately in The Passionate 
Pilgrim as poems by him, but uses the sonnet form in the dialogue in 
several instances." Cf. i, i, 163-177, a passage which, however, is not 
quite a sonnet; iv, 2, 109-122; 3, 60-73, ^^^- There are two sonnets 
in Romeo and Juliet, one in AlPs Well and in Henry V (Fleay, The 
English Drama, II, 224, and Sh. Manual, p. 135). Mr. T. Hall Caine 
has discovered " the sextet of a Shakespearean sonnet " in Rich. II, ii, 
I, 8-13. It will be noticed that all of these plays are early, AlPs Well 
being the only one that falls after 1600. After this Shakespeare did not 
use the sonnet in his plays. 

2 It is, perhaps, fair to state, as to Marston, that the songs which are 
not infrequently indicated in his plays, have not come down to us. 
Chapman, the great " Homeri Metaphrastes," needed the compass of 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXXI 



of them all is it difficult to get a lyric which is not at once 
good and representative. From all the rest comes music of 
varying melody and compass : the dainty lightness of 
Lyly, the sweet sincerity of Dekker, the delicate erotic 
sentiment of Beaumont and Fletcher, the weird and fanciful 
sorrow of Webster, the classical symmetry and nicety of 
Jonson, the rich variety and perfect mastery of Shakespeare : 
whether in the melodious lament for what is fair and fleeting, 
in the hearty bacchanal of good cheer and good fellowship, 
or in the love song with its flashing prismatic lights and 
deep, rich shadows, we have here the perfection of winged 
music, wedded to the perfection of lyrical emotion. 

In the last years of the century an original and potent 
influence began to make itself felt. Ben Jonson is one of 
that interesting class of literary men that have a theory 
about literature; and Jonson's theory was a reasonable and 
consistent one. It was one view of the subject; it was not 
the only view. While all art must ultimately resolve itself 
into an imitation of nature, in Aristotle's sense of that term, 
it is none the less true that few artists can afford to neglect 
the careful study of previous interpretations of nature. It 
was the amateurishness of contemporary art that Jonson 
criticised, which, when it copied at all, was apt to copy 
inferior models irresponsibly, and was continually running 
to excesses of all kinds, to over-ornament, bizarre treatment, 
carelessness as to construction, confusion of design, depar- 
tures from simplicity and directness, of all of which his 
age furnished examples enough. Jonson contended, like 
Matthew Arnold in our own day, that only in a faithful, 

"the vasty deep" in which to spread his "full and swelling sail"; he 
was stranded in the shallows of a calmly-flowing inland stream. It is 
notable that even his sonnet sequence A Coronet in Praise of his Mis- 
tress Philosophy, becomes little more than a continuous poem written 
in successive quatorzains. 



xxxii INTRODUCTION. 

though neither slavish nor affected, study of the ancients 
could English literature hope to acquire that professional 
touch, that sense of taste and proportion, of finish ad 
unguem, which industry, but no mere genius can supply. 
He was thus the first to feel theoretically the beginning of 
the reaction against the excesses of Romanticism run riot ; 
and he was certainly as judicious in the application of his- 
theories to his own poetry as he was injudicious in venti- 
lating these theories at peculiarly inopportune moments. 
There has been in the history of literature, in consequence, 
a curious confusion of Jonson's theories, his practice and his 
manners. The last were often so bad as scarcely to be con- 
ceived worse ; but there is much misapprehension still 
common about the other two. Now all this applies to 
Jonson's lyrics as well as to his other productions ; for 
Jonson's lyrics are usually found by the critics to be want- 
ing in something or other, if they are not called heavy, 
harsh, and stiff. The harshness, stiffness, and heaviness of 
the poetical diction of Ben Jonson is precisely as demon- 
strable as his undying enmity towards Shakespeare : both 
are the purest figments of the imagination. Not only shall 
I agree with Lowell when he tells us : " Yet Ben, with his 
principles off, could soar and sing with the best of them," 
but I shall not hesitate to afBrm that Ben could soar and 
sing with his principles on, and possibly because of them. 
Many of the lyrics of Jonson are nearly perfect in their kind, 
and the reason for their perfection is, I think, to be found 
in the happy conjunction of a choice lyrical gift with the 
cultivated taste of genuine scholarship. To complete Lowell's 
words of Jonson : " There are strains in his lyrics which 
Herrick, the most Catullian of poets since Catullus, could 
imitate but never match." ^ I, at least, have no excuse to 
offer for having included a larger number of the lyrics of 
1 Lessing, Lowell's Prose Works, ed. 1890, II, 223. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 

Jonson in this collection than of any other poet except 
Shakespeare. 

Jonson, Fletcher, and the later dramatists continued the 
lyric vein to the end of the reign of James and beyond ; 
and the lyrics written for music remained popular to the 
time of the later collections of Campion, Bateson, and Peer- 
son ; whilst an occasional belated sequence of sonnets mixed 
with madrigals appeared, such as Drummond's. But the 
golden summer of the English lyric was now on the wane 
under stress of new and non-lyrical influences ; moreover a 
new and portentous growth had appeared, a species of 
applied literature, voluminous, nondescript verse devoted 
to things essentially unpoetical. For now came the days of 
the Polyolbions and Purple Islands, of verses topographical- 
mythological, and allegorical-anatomical : works that stand 
like huge Pelasgan walls, inexplicable from the hands of 
men as men now are. Naturally such works demanded a 
large attention, and this, with the growing interest in literary 
prose, took from the popular culture of the lyric, which 
languished somewhat in the hands of younger men, though 
still the native utterance of the surviving poets of an older 
generation. 

It is a commonplace of the history of literature that the 
Jacobean poets wrote under three strong poetic influences, 
that of Spenser, that of Donne, and that of Jonson. Shake- 
speare less affected his immediate successors because he 
rose above mannerism and schools ; and yet it would hardly 
be unfair to say that the best lyrics of Beaumont, of Fletcher 
and Webster exhibit much of the Shakespearean manner. 
The lyrical tact and the classic certainty of Jonson's touch 
descended to several — not always the worthiest — of "the 
tribe of Ben," until the perfection of the hedonistic lyrical 
spirit in English poetry was reached in Campion, in Carew, 
and in Herrick. Donne, after no inconsiderable effect upon 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 

many of the minor poets and, indeed, upon Jonson himself, 
came in a new age to be regarded as more or less remotely 
the model whence were derived many of the blemishes, and 
not a few of the graces, of the poetry of Crashaw, Herbert, 
and others. 

The Spenserians concern us less, as the Muse of Spenser 
is not so lyrical as imaginatively and elaborately idyllic. 
The shorter and more strictly lyrical poems, too, of William 
Browne and of Wither — who alone really succeeded in 
grafting a living shoot upon the pastoral stem of Spenser — 
are less derived from Spenser than from the more immediate 
models of Jonson or Campion.^ Yet Browne had, notwith- 
standing, a true lyric quality of his own, which entitles him 
to a place of respect ; and, indeed, if we are to believe that 
he was actually the author of the famous Epitaph on the 
Countess of Pembroke^ so long attributed to Jonson, Browne 
has certainly succeeded for once in rivaling his master at 
that master's best.^ As to Wither whose verse, undistin- 
guished from his poetry has long been painfully reprinting 
under the auspices of the Spenser Society (a task which 
indeed seems to have proved unhappily too much even for 
that long-lived association, and brought it of late to an 
untimely end), his heights and depths approach the heights 
and depths of Wordsworth ; whilst his fecundity is no less 
amazing than his metrical facility. Would that we had one 
more lyric like the immortal " Shall I wasting in despair " 
for many pages of eclogues and satires, excellent although 
many of them undoubtedly are. 

Lastly we reach William Drummond of Hawthornden, 
whose sonnets are entirely after the earlier manner, Italian, 
sentimental, romantic, but touched with a delicate medita- 

1 Cf. Browne's Song of the Siren, p. 167 below, with Campion's Hymn 
in praise of Neptune, BuUen's Campion, p. 396. 

2 See the Epitaph, p. 201, and the note thereon. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxv 

tive imagination and a heightened sense of color that leads 
us to feel that in this poet we have the appropriate repre- 
sentative of the brilliant autumn of the Elizabethan year. 
Like Browne and Wither, Drummond was imitative in the 
best sense of that word, and displays with them a skillful 
and artistic employment of previous models to a larger 
degree than that spontaneous outburst of innate song 
which critics are wont to attribute to the earlier lyrists.^ 
While recognizing this difference, I am sensible that it can 
easily be exaggerated and that " native wood-notes wild " 
are often in reality no more than that perfect art the crown 
of which is masterly concealment. A certain artificiality 
inheres in the artistic productions of all poets, and some 
there are, notably Herrick shortly after this, and Campion, 
Drummond, and Browne in this age, whose sense of artistic 
fitness has enabled them at times to surpass even the success 
of their masters. 

The death of Fletcher may seem an arbitrary limit to 
put to a series of literary phenomena so unbroken as the 
lyrics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the 
year 1625, however, almost every lyrist of importance who 
had written in the reign of Elizabeth, had either completed 
his best work or ceased altogether to write ; whilst of the 
Caroline poets that were to make the next reign musical, 
not one had yet begun to sing. Shakespeare and Beaumont 
were dead in 16 16, Raleigh in 16 18, Campion, Daniel, and 
Davison in the next year ; Donne, Drayton, and Jonson 
survived until the thirties, but their poetry, especially their 
lyrical poetry, was earlier ; and the most significant work 
of Browne, and even of Wither, and certainly of Drum- 
mond and the later song-writers, was concluded well before 
the accession of Charles. 

^ See the notes on Drummond's poems in this volume for several 
instances of his borrowings from Sidney and others, below p. 296. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 

We have thus traversed in the merest sketch that period 
of the history of English Uterature in which the lyric 
flourished as it has never flourished before or since in 
England. We found the Elizabethan lyric rising as one of 
the products of the Renaissance, rapidly developing amidst 
the culture of the court, thriving under the quickening 
impulses of national and urban life, and proceeding through 
a series of definite though superficial poetical fashions to 
triumph after triumph in a thousand forms of new and 
diverse beauty under the touch of men whose names must 
remain immortal, whilst our language continues to be read. 
Aside from the lofty and sustained excellence of this verse 
as a whole, and its extraordinary variety of mood and treat- 
ment, its most striking peculiarity consists in the wide con- 
temporary distribution of a matchless gift of song, which 
Hke the rays of the sun shone impartially on all, from 
lords and courtiers such as Oxford, Essex, or Raleigh to 
the veriest literary hacks, Nashe, Munday, or Chettle ; 
from the saintly Father Southwell to atheistical Marlowe ; 
visiting busy dramatists, like Heywood, Dekker, or Field, 
in the dull stretches of perfunctory toil; adorning the 
learning of Jonson and the scholarly leisure of Drum- 
mond ; courting the condemned traitor Tychborne in his 
cell and the fallen statesman Bacon in his disgrace. Nor 
was this general ability to write excellent lyrical verse 
due to narrow interests or to the spirit of the dilettafiie, 
which rejoices in artistic trifling. On the contrary, the 
lyrical poetry of this incomparable age, with its sister- 
blossoms, the pastoral, the romantic epic, the drama, and 
its ample leafage of admirable prose, was the outcome of an 
intense and potent national spirit, seeking an outlet for its 
energies, not only in social, religious, and political channels, 
but in intellectual and emotional activities as well. The 
men that wrote these lyrics were often the men that bore 



INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 

arms, or sat in the councils of their sovereign, men that 
scorned not the good opinion of tlieir neighbors, nor the 
lands and beeves wherewith to support the shows of the 
world. It is an excellent thing to contemplate this great 
historical refutation of that inane theory which makes litera- 
ture the pursuit of dreamers, or of abnormal departures from 
typical manhood, instead of a divine realization, by those 
who can see more deeply than the crowd, of the real image 
of man and of nature, towards which image the world is 
striving, but whereunto it reaches but seldom. 

Not the least merit of Elizabethan literature, defining 
both words strictly, is its soundness and its health ; its very 
lapses from decorum are those of childhood, and its extrava- 
gances those of youth and heated blood, both as far as 
possible removed from the cold cynicism, the doubt of man 
and God, that crept into England in the train of King 
James, and came in time to chill and benumb the pulses of 
the nation. The best lyrics of this age are redolent with 
this soundness and health, and still joyous with the flush of 
youth and beauty. There is but one way in which to know 
them, and that is to read them and to re-read them ; to study 
them, not as the interesting products of an age to be 
patronized as unhappily not in the enjoyment of all the 
inestimable advantages of our own, but to recognize in 
them the living work of men, who were, save for their genius, 
much such men as we ; to learn to understand them and 
through understanding to love them as one of the most 
exquisite and priceless heritages handed down to posterity 
through the lapse of years. 



xxxviii /iVTV? OD UC TION. 

11. 

ELIZABETHAN LYRICAL MEASURES. 

The metrical forms, in which the lyric of the age of 
Elizabeth sought utterance, have been little studied : beyond 
the sonnet, scarcely studied at all. Even Dr. Schipper, 
whose excellent work on English Metres ^ is surprisingly full 
of matter of even minor detail, leaps from the lyrical forms 
of Sidney to those of Jonson, Donne, and Drummond, and 
offers us no word of the metres of anthologies later than 
TotteVs Miscellany^ of the song-books, of lyrics of the 
dramatists, or of the lyrical achievements of such metrists 
as Greene, Lodge, Breton, Barnes, Campion, and Wither. 
This is not the place for an extended study of this interest- 
ing subject, more especially as the interest attaching to 
questions of organic literary form often runs quite distinct 
from aesthetic or historical considerations. 

It is familiar to scholars that modern English verse is the 
resultant of three forces, all of them contemporaneous in 
their action, but not in their origin, and varying in relative 
intensity. These forces or influences are represented (i) in 
the older national metre, the English representative of the 
original Teutonic metre ; (2) in the several foreign metrical 
systems, chiefly Italian and French, derived either directly 
or through Chaucer ; and (3) in the imitations of classical 
metres in English, for many years the experiment and 
diversion of the learned. Although several of the lyrists 
of this age, as Watson and Campion, display a graceful 
command of the composition of Latin verses, which must 
materially have aided them in the acquisition of a like facility 
in the mother tongue, this last influence may be disregarded, 

1 Englische Metrik, 1889. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxix 

after emphasizing the great advantage that came from 
experiments of this kind, in disclosing the actual nature and 
limitations of the English language, and in improving the 
technique of verse. The older vernacular metres, too, exerted 
less influence on the lyric than might be supposed, although 
the earlier freedom as to number and distribution of syllables 
not infrequently asserts itself,-^r the mediaeval fondness for 
the employment of alliteration for the sake of the jingle and 
not as a characteristic entering into the organism of the 
verse. It is to contemporary and earlier foreign models, 
then, that we must turn, if we are to find the chief motive, 
spirit, and much of the form of the Elizabethan lyric. Nor 
need this be understood to involve in question the genuine 
originality of the best of Elizabethan lyrists. The tree 
stood transplanting and flourished hardily until it became a 
new species in the colder air of England ; but the tender 
scion long partook of the nature of the parent stem, and 
the lyric of England in the hands of mediocrity continued 
essentially an imitation of the lyric of Italy. 

Reasons for this are not far to seek. The lyric must be 
neither learned nor provincial. Most of all forms of poetry 
must the lyric be the product of a refined and a cultivated 
taste. We have seen that the English lyric had its birth in 
cultivated courtly circles ; for it was there that the artistic 
spirit was the purest, because it was there that it was closest 
to its source and inspiration, the Italy of the Renaissance, 
and least intermixed with extraneous elements. Indeed, 
after all, the English, no less than the Italians, were devotees 
of the new and passionate cult of beauty, delighting in 
glories of form and gorgeousness of color, whether displayed 
in glittering and jeweled robes of state, in splendid piles of 
fantastic and bizarre architecture, or in the flow and sweep 
of the sonorous and elaborated stanzas of The Faery Queen. 

From an organic point of view the Elizabethan lyric 



xl IN TROD UC TION. 

exhibits the greatest possible diversity. Although the 
iambus^ was regarded by the early critics of verse as the 
only English foot,^ and continues to-day overwhelmingly 
the most usual, other movements are found very early. 
]Thus Puttenham gives a (possibly manufactured) instance 
of trochaic measure in the verse : 

Craggy cliffs bring forth the fairest fountain.^ 

and Wyatt and Surrey exhibit an occasional verse of like 
effect although no entire poem in that measure. With Greene 
and Breton trochaics become not uncommon and — especially 
in the popular heptasyllabic or truncated verse of four 
accents — are familiar to the versification of Barnfield, 
Shakespeare, the later song writers, Jonson, Fletcher, Browne, 
and Wither.'' 

It seems reasonable to regard English trochaic measures, 
not so much as attempts to follow a foreign metrical system, 
as a continuance of the original freedom of English verse as 
to the distribution of syllables. Most English trochaics 
show a tendency to revert back to the more usual iambic 
system by the addition of an initial unaccented syllable. 
Thus in Greene's Ode on p. 54, of thirty-six verses, ten are 

1 I use these terms {iambus^ trochee, etc.) in their usual acceptation 
as to English verse, for the want of a better popular nomenclature. 
Few metrists now deny that English metres are founded primarily on 
accent ; although some still continue to question the important function 
of quantity as a regulator of the time intervals in which the accented 
and unaccented syllables are arranged. On this subject see Schipper, 
Englische Metrik, I, 21 f., and Lanier's demonstration "that there can 
be no rhythm in sounds, except through their relative time or duration, 
quantity." Science of English Verse, p. 65. 

2 See Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction, ed. Arber, pp. 33, 34, and 
King James' Essays of a Prentice, chap. iii. 

8 Art of English Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 144. 

* Cf. pp. 36, 47. 54. 88, 120, 128, 133, 162, 168, 174, 178. 



INTR OD UC TJ ON. xl i 

iambic, the rest trochaic. On the other hand, trochaic license 
may appear in iambic verse, as in V^^XQigh' s Pilgrimage, p. 130 : 

And when the grand twelve-milUon jury 
Of our sins with direful fury, 
'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, 
Christ pleads his death, and then we live. 

Here the norm is four iambic feet, making eight syllables ; 
but these Unes number respectively nine, eight, seven, and 
eight, and only the last follows the norm. A later, famiUar, 
example of this freedom is to be found in Milton's V Allegro. 
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the prevailing foot 
will impart its character to the whole poem, despite occasional 
departure from the type.^ An instance of admirably success- 
ful anapaests will be found in Pilgrim to Pilgrim, p. 3, a 
poem the metrical parallel of which it would be difficult to 
find until far later. E.g. : 

His desire is a dureless content, 
And a trustless joy; 

He is won with a world of despair 
And is lost with a toy. 

Jonson's anapaests (see The Triumph of Charis, p. 183) 
are not very successful, though scarcely deserving of the 
scathing invective of Mr. Swinburne.^ Dactyls too are 
rare, and seem to have been confined chiefly to experiments 
in the classical hexameter. The dactyl, however, was 
defended in argument for measures other than the hexam- 
eter by critics like Puttenham,^ and used occasionally, like 
the anapsst in iambic measures, as a license in poems 
prevailingly trochaic. The employment of anapaestic and 
dactylic measures in this age for an entire poem is unusual; 

1 See Mayor, Chapters on English Metre, p. 91. 

2 A Study ofBen/onson, p. 104, and see note, p. 287, below. 
8 Art 0/ English Poetry, ed. Arber, p. 140. 



xlii INTRODUCTION. 

but is, for a part of a stanza otherwise constructed, some- 
what more frequent, especially in Shakespeare, who often 
employs a change to a light tripping measure for his refrain, 
as in the second and third examples which follow : 

I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 

Heigh-ho ! sing heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. 

Merrily, merrily shall I live now 

Under the blossom that swings on the bough.^ 

The measures of the Elizabethan lyric exhibit great 
diversity, whether in verses of equal or unequal lengths. 
The range extends from verses of two stresses : ^ 

Sing we and chant it 
While love doth grant it,^ 

to the long iambic fourteener or septenary, which, although 
usually split into alternate verses of four and three accents 
by a strong caesura and so printed, occurs not infrequently 
undivided. E.g.^ from Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale: 

Wert thou the only world's admired thou canst love but one. 
And many have before been loved, thou art not loved alone ; ^ 

or thus in trochaic measure : 

Thy well ordered locks ere long shall rudely hang neglected 
And thy lively pleasant cheer read grief on earth dejected.^ 

For an instance of the divided septenary see Southwell's 
Btirni7ig Babe, p. 69, sometimes, as in the first edition, printed 
undivided. The Alexandrine, another verse of early pop- 
ularity consisting of six iambic feet, generally occurs, in 

1 Cf. pp. 122, 95, and 154. 2 cf. M. N. D. iii, 2, 448. 

8 BuUen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, p. 106. 
* Bullen, More Lyrics, p. 28. ^ Cf. p. 187. 



INTRODUCTION. xliii 

lyrical poetry, divided into two verses of three stresses each. 
E.g., these lines of Lodge : 

The gods that saw the good 

That mortals did approve, 
With kind and holy mood, 

Began to talk of Love. 

Several examples of the undivided Alexandrine are to be 
found in trochaics as well as iambics, continuous or — more 
frequently — united with verses of other lengths : e.g., from 
the first sonnet of Astrophel and Stella, which is entirely in 
Alexandrines : 

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, 

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite ; 

Fool, said my Muse to me, look in thy heart, and write ; 

or thus in trochaics : 

When thy story, long time hence, shall be perusM, 
Let the blemish of thy rule be thus excused, 
* None ever lived more just, none more abused.' ^ 

The final Alexandrine of the Spenserian stanza was not 
without its effect on lyric measures, and several lyric stanzas 
display this "sweet lengthening" of the concluding verse. 
(See Jonson, p. 113; and Jones, p. 121.) The combination of 
the septenary and the Alexandrine, the well-known poulter's 
measure, was becoming rare in serious poetry by the 
beginning of this period ; a specimen may be seen, however, 
in Oxford's poem, Fancy and Desire, p. 8 of this volume. 

If the sonnet be included in the count with the many other 
stanzas in which decasyllabic measure occurs alone or in 
combination with other measures, the iambic verse of five 
stresses will be found the most common English lyrical 
measure, as it is the measure most frequently employed in 
1 Bullen's Campion, p. 49. 



xliv INTRODUCTION. 

the drama and in epic poetry. But, the sonnet apart, verses 
of four stresses form the favorite lyrical measure of the 
age, whether in the usual iambic form, e.g. : 

At last he set her both his eyes. 
She won, and Cupid blind did rise,^ 

or in the limpid trochaics (usually truncated and hence 
consisting of but seven syllables) of Breton, Barnfield, or 
Shakespeare, e.g. : 

On a day, alack the day ! 

Love, whose month is ever May, 

Spied a blossom passing fair, 

Playing in the wanton air."^ 

The lyrics of Shakespeare, Fletcher and the dramatists in 
general exhibit a great preponderance of octosyllabics and 
shorter measures ; decasyllabics being reserved for their 
dramatic writings almost altogether. This is scarcely less 
true of the song-writers, who display the greatest freedom 
of choice and combination, but prefer the lighter and 
shorter measures. As already intimated above, variety 
of feet, except as an occasional license, rarely extends, in 
any of these measures, beyond the usual iambic and trochaic 
movement ; and the trochee is confined, for the most part, 
to heptasyllabics. Thus, whether slurred in pronunciation 
or not, a redundance results from the substitution of three 
syllables for two in the third foot of this line : 

Rose^ their sharp spines being gone ; 

or take, as an extreme case, the line : 

Thus fain woUld I have hdd a prdtty thfng, 

which is uttered in the same time interval as : 

O Lady, what a luck is this.^ 

1 Cf. Lyly's Apelles'' Song, p. 19; also Sidney's Wooing Stuffs p. 9. 

2 LLL, iv, 3, loi ; see also pp. 47, 50, 54, 67, etc. ^ P. 26. 



INTRODUCTION. xlv 

On the other hand syllables are occasionally omitted, forming 
what is technically known as the compensating pause, 
although such departures from the norm are far rarer in 
lyric than in contemporary dramatic verse. An illustration 
of such a pause effecting emphasis is this, from Lyly : 

Thy bread be frowns ; thy drink be gall, 
(w) Such as when you Phao call.^ 

See also Spenser's Ferigot and Willie's Roundelay^ which is 
written altogether upon a recognition of the principle that 
the time intervals of successive or corresponding verses 
being the same, any distribution of syllables (not destructive 
of such time intervals), may be rhythmical, e.g. : 

\j \j \j \j 

Hey ho hoi - li daye. 

Hey ho the high hyll. 

The while the shep-heards selfe did spill. 

The greene is for may - dens meet. 

Here the normal scheme demands eight syllables, or four 
iambuses ; but few verses of the answering refrain or burden 
exhibit this quantum, a deft distribution of pauses keeping 
the poem, however, perfectly rhythmical. An example of 
the compensating pause regularly distributed with onomato- 
poetic effect is found in Jonson's Echo's Lame?it for Narcissus, 

p. 113: 

O could I still 

Like melting snow upon some craggy hill 

Drop, drop, drop, drop, 

Since Nature's pride is now a withered daffodil. 

Variety of feet entering into the organism of the stanza 
— and not as a mere license for variety's sake — is less 
frequent in Elizabethan lyrical stanzas than might be ex- 

1 P. 22. 2 p. 2^ below. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION. 

pected. Some of Shakespeare's songs are the best known 
instances, as Silvia (p. 56),, where the verses seem alternately 
trochaic and iambic by reason of the distribution of the 
unaccented syllables, the tripping refrains of the two songs 
from As You Like It (p. 95), and, best of all, the change 
from the anapaests of the first four verses of the Dirge from 
Twelfth Nig/it (p- 122) to the regular iambics of the fifth 
and seventh verses. While other lyrists, too, display this 
quality of an organic variation of foot, Thomas Campion 
appears to me one of the most subtle masters of this as of 
many other metrical devices. Space permits but two ex- 
amples. Notice the clever adaptation of the metre to the 
thought in both cases, especially in the metrical change 
between the third and fourth verses of the latter : 

What if a day, or a month, or a year 
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings ? 

Cannot a chance of a night or an hour 
Cross thy desires with as many sad tormentings 1 
Fortune, Honor, Beauty, Youth 

Are but blossoms dying ; 
Wanton Pleasure, doting Love 
Are but shadows flying, etc. 

Break now, my heart, and die ! O no, she may relent. 
Let my despair prevail ! O stay, hope is not spent. 
Should she now fix one smile on thee, where were despair ? 

The loss is but easy, which smiles can repair. 

A stranger would please thee, if she was as fair.^ 

Modes more usually employed to compass variety of 
cadence are found in the increasing freedom with which 
later Elizabethan lyrists used (i) the distribution of rime- 
correspondences with correspondences as to length of verse, 
and (2) their growing skill in phrasing and the employment 

1 Bullen's Campion, p. 95 ; and see p. 398. 



INTRODUCTION. xlvii 

of run-on lines. Take this early stanza from A Handful 
of Pleasant Delights (p. 25): 

It is not all the silk in Cheap, 

Nor all the golden treasure, 
Nor twenty bushels on a heap, 

Can do my lady pleasure. 

Here the alternate lines correspond respectively in length, 
rime, and rhetorical pause {i.e., * sense pause '), and unite, 
with perfect regularity of stress and number of syllables, to 
carry out what may be termed the metrical scheme. In 
contrast, consider this stanza of Jonson : 

Mark, mark, but when his wing he takes i 

How fair a flight he makes ! 
How upward and direct ! 
Whilst pleased Apollo 
Smiles in his sphere to see the rest affect 5 

In vain to follow. 
This swan is only his, 
And Phoebus' love cause of his blackness is.^ 

Here only two of the lines, which correspond in length, also 
correspond in rime ; whilst not only are the verses of several 
different lengths, but the enjambe?nent, or 'overflow' of lines 
I, 4, and 5 adds a still greater variety to the effect. These 
characteristics were so general and often so dependent upon a 
passing mood that they hardly call for individual specification. 
Greene and Lodge (but neither Breton nor Lyly) often 
show extreme diversity in the lengths of their verses.^ 
Among later lyrists the same contrast is to be found in the 
verse of Davison and Drummond on the one hand and 

^ Ode aW-qyopiKTi, Jonson^ Riverside ed., p. 374. 

"^ Cf. Rosalindas Madrigal, p. 29, Menaphon''s So7ig, p. 35, or Doron's 
J^Sy P- 38, with Apelles' Song, p. 19, Olden Love-Making, p. 27, or 
Phyllida and Cory don, p. 47. 



xl viii rNTR OD UC TION. 

Wither and Browne on the other.^ Shakespeare in his very 
latest lyrics, Jonson and Fletcher at times, and Donne con- 
stantly, show much freedom and art in phrasing and in the 
employment of the overflow.^ 

The Elizabethan lyric, like all English verse, displays an 
overwhelming preference for single or masculine rimes as 
compared with double or feminine ones. This is demanded 
by the monosyllabic character of our tongue and that pro- 
clitic tendency which has come to make the iambus the 
usual foot in modern English.^ Feminine rimes, however, 
are used not only to vary the effect by a redundant final 
syllable, as in : 

She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn, 
And there sung the dolefullest ditty^ 
That to hear it was great pity ; ^ 

but also as entering into the organism of the stanza, as in 
this Madrigal from Bateson's collection : 

1 Cf. Madrigal^ to Ctipid, p. 72, Drummond's Madrigals, pp. 179, 206, 
with Welcome, welcome, p. 175, A Round, p. 176, or Shall I Wasting in 
Despair, p. 168. 

2 See Shakespeare's Orpheus, p. 164, Fletcher's Bridal Song, p. 160, 
or Car e-charmiftg Sleep, p. 173, Jonson's Echo''s Dirge, p. 113, Nymph^s 
Passion, p. 192, or Dream, p. 193, Donne's Funeral, p. 104, and the 
Sonnet on Death, p. 142. This subject seems to me worthy of greater 
attention than it has yet received except in the field of dramatic blank 
verse. Few points of metre offer so strong an index of poetic tem- 
perament and development if wisely investigated. 

3 As instances of this proclitic character, notice the obscure pronun- 
ciation of many common English words, e.g., the man, of steel. Other 
reasons for our modern preference for the iambus are to be found in the 
fact that monosyllabic words compounded with a prefix usually retain the 
Teutonic root-accent: forewarned, become; that in words of three or 
more syllables the secondary accent is likely to fall on alternate syllables: 
extejiudte ; and that many rules of collocation further make for this 
tendency. * See p. 88 9-12. 



INTRODUCTION. xlix 

Sister awake, close not your eyes 

The day its light discloses 
And the bright morning doth arise 

Out of her bed of roses j ^ 

or this of John Fletcher : 

Away, delights ! go seek some other dwelling, 

For I must die. 
Farewell, false love ! thy tongue is ever telling 

Lie after lie. 

Sidney, Breton, several of the madrigal writers, and others 
have written poems, the rimes of which are wholly feminine. 
E.g,^ Breton's A Farewell to Love: 

Farewell, love and- loving folly, 

All thy thoughts are too unholy : 

Beauty strikes thee full of blindness, , 

And then kills thee with unkindness, etc.*-^ 

In a long poem, however, this at times becomes forced. 
The greatest possible variety as to the number and arrange- 
ment of rime correspondences is to be found in this litera- 
ture ; men like Lodge, Nashe, and Shakespeare did not 
hesitate to play upon a rime for emphasis, serious or 
sportive, to the extent of four, six, and even eight successive 
lines. Notice the effect produced by the following, which 
is further increased by the strong and regular terminal and 
internal caesura : 

Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
He tastes the fruit whilst others toil, 
He brings the lamp, we lend the oil, 
He sows distress, we yield him soil. 
He wageth war, we bide the foil.^ 

1 P. 132. 

2 Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances, p. 97. 

* P. 60; see also pp. 29, 51, and M. N D., iii, 2, 102-109, 



1 INTRODUCTION. 

Internal rime is not very frequent, although it occurs occa- 
sionally as an organic characteristic, in Nashe's song Spring, 
p. 51, or Campion's lines : 

Every dame affects good fame, whate'er her doings be, 

But true praise is Virtue's bays, which none may wear but she ;i 

or almost accidentally, as in Wither's Sonnet (p. 202): 

My spirit loathes 
Where gaudy clothes 
And feigned oaths may love obtain. 

The refrain, too, was a frequent device, occurring in the final 
verse of the stanza (see pp. 113, 153, 162), internally, as in 
Sidney's two poems (pp. 11 and 15); and even initially, as in 
the poem, Accurst be Love, a stanza of which is quoted 
just above. Often the refrain takes the form of a recurring 
stanza of several lines, sometimes placed at the beginning 
of the poem as well as after each stanza. {E.g., Dekker's 
O Sweet Cofite?it, p. 93, or Browne's So?ig, p. 175.) At the 
other extreme of these various devices of sound correspond- 
ence may be mentioned the rare instances of poems which 
preserve all the ' notes ' of the lyric except rime. (See the 
unrimed quatorzain, AH in Naught, p. 148, and Jonson's 
lines, p. 194.^) 

Lastly alliteration, one of the earliest inheritances of the 
English Muse, continued a familiar device of poetic style ; 
although few things better mark the growth of a chastened 
literary style than the contrast between the persistent and 
unnecessary " hunting of the letter " by Gascoigne, and even 
by Spenser in his earlier day, and the subtle and half-furtive 
use of these correspondences in sound by the later dramatic 

1 Fourth Book of Airs, Bullen's Campion, p. 115. 

2 See also the hendecasyllabic, unrimed verses subscribed ' A. W.' in 
The Poetical Rhapsody and there called " Phaleuciacks." (Ed. Bullen, 
pp. 38, 44, 76.) 



INTRODUCTION. H 

lyrists and song writers. (Cf. on this point Gascoigne's 
The Strange Passion of a Lover ^ p. i, with Webster's Dirge, 
p, 145, or Beaumont and Fletcher's Aspatia's Song, p. 148.) 

We left the earlier Elizabethan lyrists experimenting and 
busily engaged in peopling the downs of Middlesex and 
Surrey with the supposed shepherds and shepherdesses of 
Piedmont and the Campagna ; not only transmuting their 
Madges and Maulkins into Lauras or at least Phyllidas, but 
likewise imitating the dainty poetic forms of Italy in sonnets, 
madrigals, terzines, canzons, and sestines. But a national 
literature can never be established upon the imitation of 
foreign models, however perfect ; and while several of these 
forms continued to be practiced with greater or less fidelity 
and success, it was only those which were molded into a 
distinctively English character in the hands of the greater 
masters of versification, that quickened with a later growth. 

Historically as well as intrinsically, the three greatest 
metrists of the earlier part of this period are Sidney, 
Spenser, and Marlowe. Of these, Marlowe's achievements 
in dramatic blank verse do not concern us here. The 
stanza of The Faery Qtieen is only the most striking instance 
of the perfect taste and unerring metrical tact, which have 
enabled Spenser, more successfully than any other English 
poet, to choose or invent precisely that medium of poetic 
expression which was best fitted to the conveyance of his 
thought. Nothing could be finer than the liquid flow of the 
long stanzas of the Prothalamion (p. 76) or the diversified, 
musical phrasing of the Dirge for Dido in November of The 
Shepherds' Calendar; and we recognize at once that in form 
as well as in matter Spenser stands at the head of the 
pastoral lyrists. But, as remarked above, the Muse of 
Spenser is not so purely lyrical as imaginatively and elabo- 
rately idyllic, and hence we are not surprised to find him 



lii INTRODUCTION. 

rarely winging those short ecstatic flights which distinguish 
so many of his minor contemporaries. The classical experi- 
ments of Spenser, Sidney, and their Areopagus Club,^ 
as already stated, little concerned the lyric ; and yet the 
metrical ingenuity of the young reformers was busied in 
matters besides abortive sapphics and asclepiads ; and the 
Arcadia exhibits many imitations of contemporary Italian 
metrical forms. Sidney thus becomes for us the chief 
representative of Italian metrical influence on the English 
lyric. 

The word pastoral is a generic term denoting a literary 
mode, not a special literary form. It is familiar that this 
mode is common to verse and prose, the epic, dramatic, and 
lyric form, and mingled with every other conceivable mode 
which the teeming originality of an age which doted on 
novelty could bring forth. We have thus the pastoral 
romance told in prose, Rosalind or Pandosio; exhibiting 
simple bucolic life or mingled with deeds of valor and ad- 
venture as in the A?'cadia; allegorized and told in verse as in 
The Faery Queeji. We have the pastoral drama mythologized 
in Midas or The Arraignment of Paris ; anglicized in The Sad 
Shepherd; or maintaining the Italian flavor in The Faithful 
Shepherdess or in The Queen's Arcadia. Again, there are 
narrative pastorals like The Shepherds' Calendar; the eclogues 
of Drayton and Lodge with all the devices of dialogue and 
musical contest, in the latter case diverted into a satirical 
channel, at other times stretched into a rambling poem 
describing much, narrating little, like Britannia's Pastorals; 
forced into the mold of far-fetched allegory as The Purple 
Island : or applied to " divine uses " as Christ's Victory a?id 

1 See Mr. Gosse's article on Sidney, Contemporary Review, I, 642, 
Church's Spettser, pp. 18, 19, and the editor's Poetic and Verse Criticism 
of the Reign of Elizabeth, Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, 
Series in Philology, Literature ajid Archaeology, I, No. i, pp. 27 f. 



INTRODUCTION. liii 

Triumph. Lastly we have the pastoral lyric in collections 
like Lodge's Phyllis and the poems of this species scattered 
through the anthologies and through longer works in verse 
and prose. These poems often exhibit very direct foreign 
influence in title and stanzaic form : the familiar eclogue and 
idyl, a term of infrequent occurrence among Elizabethan 
authors ; the madrigal, discussed below ; the barginet, more 
correctly the bergeret, a shepherd's song, in the specimen by 
Lodge in England's Helicon,^ made up of a series of tercets. 
The only English metre which can be said to have become 
to any degree identified with the pastoral mode, is the octo- 
syllabic iambic measure riming either in couplets or 
alternately with its derivative, the heptasyllabic trochaics, 
extremely common in the works of Breton. These metres, 
however, are almost as frequently employed in other lyrical 
modes. ^ 

On the other hand, England's Helicon, which may be 
regarded as typical of the pastoral mode, lavishes the 
greatest variety of titles indiscriminately upon poems little 
distinguished as to form. Thus sonnet is applied to anything, 
whether a quatorzain or of other length, whilst long stanzaic 
poems equally with short ones are called madrigals, ditties, 
idyllia, songs, or simi^ly pastorals. The last word too is affixed 
to any term : as pastoral ode, pastoral song, pastoral sonnet, 
or canzon pastoral. Many titles of pastoral songs and their 
corresponding words are derived from popular terms for 
dances : as they/^, a merry, irregular song in short measure, 
more or less comic, and often sung and danced by the clown 
to an accompaniment of pipe and tabor ; the branle, Eng- 
lished brawl and confused with a very different significance 
of the same word ; the rowidelay, a light poem, originally a 
shepherd's dance, in which an idea or phrase is repeated, 

1 Ed. Bullen, p. 46. 

2 Cf. pp. 114, 119, 120, 162, 168, 172. 



liv INTRODUCTION. 

often as a verse, or stanzaic refrain.^ Lastly several titles 
are distinctly English, or at least translations of foreign 
titles into English equivalents : as passion^ used especially 
by Watson, contention^ complaint, and lament, all in their mean- 
ings sufficiently obvious. It is useless to attempt the pres- 
ervation of distinctions wholly artificial. Similar conditions 
produce similar results ; and we do not need the Provencal 
tenzone to account for the English brawl nor the alba 
and serena to explain morning songs and serenades. A few 
metrical forms yet remain, which, however far some of 
them ultimately departed from their originals, are none the 
less Italian in source and interesting in themselves. These 
are the madrigal, the terzine, the sestine, the canzon, and the 
sonnet. 

The Italian madrigal is described by Korting ^ as an epi- 
grammatic lyric preserving no absolute rule as to form. 
From Dr. Schipper,^ however, we learn that the madrigal 
originally consisted of a combination of two or three tercets 
variously arranged as to rime, followed by one or by two 
couplets, or occasionally even by a quatrain, the measure 
being usually hendecasyllabic. Schipper gives eight varieties 
of the madrigal based upon these principles and the most 
common in the fifteenth century. From these examples it 
appears that the number of verses was not less than eight 
nor more than eleven, and that the favorite arrangement of 
the tercets was that in which the second and third verses 
rimed, the first corresponding with the fourth or not, as the 
case might be. {^E.g., a b b, ace, or ab b, cdd; plus a couplet, 
ee, or couplets, ee,ff.) An examination of the short poems 
contained in Oliphant's Musa Madrigalesca, Mr. BuUen's 
two volumes of Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, Davi- 

1 For the jig see p. 38 ; for the roundelay, pp. 5, 20, 21, etc. 

2 Encyklopddie und Methodologie der romatiischen Philologie, 111,672. 

3 Englische Metrik, II, 887. 



INTRODUCTION. Iv 

son's Poetical Rhapsody, and the poems, entitled madrigals, 
by Sidney, Barnes, Alexander, Drummond, and some others, 
exhibits some eighty or more examples approximating the 
madrigal forms given by Dr. Schipper, scarcely a score rep- 
resenting the actual Italian arrangement of rimes, and but 
one, and that not one of this number, preserving the hendeca- 
syllabics of the original metre throughout.^ As results, we 
find (i) the range of the madrigal extended from six verses 
to fifteen, and even sixteen, whilst Barnes, who wrote 
twenty-six poems in this form, has madrigals of nineteen, 
twenty-seven, and even one of forty-two lines, although his 
average range is from ten to sixteen ; (2) the metre is con- 
stantly varied, for the most part independently of the rimes, 
with verses of differing lengths, preferably lines of five 
accents and of three ; (3) considerable freedom is displayed 
in the arrangement of the rimes of the tercets ; and (4) there 
is an endeavor, especially among writers of madrigals to be 
set to music, to preserve the effect of Italian iambics by 
means of a preference for feminine rimes. 

The majority of these madrigals on Italian models occur 
in the earlier collections of Byrd, Morley, and Dowland, and 
in the Musica Tra7isalpina, which purports to be a mere 
translation. In these collections, and far more frequently 
in later ones, are found a large number of short poems 
otherwise constructed as to rime, and yet exhibiting the 
characteristics of the madrigal, and often so entitled. Some 
of these display other Italian verse forms, e.g., a quatrain 
followed by one or by two couplets, a single or double quatrain, 
or a short succession of couplets, all of these varieties of the 
Rispetto and other Italian folk-verse. To what extent these 
simple forms are merely due to prevailing English metrical 
influences, it is, of course, impossible to say. In several 

1 Cf. Musa Madrigalesca, p. 88, which exhibits abby cdd, a truncated 
form omitting the concluding couplet. 



1 vi INTR OD UC TION. 

instances of metrical variation from Dr. Schipper's Italian 
madrigal forms, Oliphant gives the original, and the English 
shows a close metrical reproduction. This proves, what we 
know from other sources, that the English writers were only 
following in the madrigal, as in other forms, the greater 
freedom which Italian verse had assumed among their con- 
temporaries of the latter half of the sixteenth century. 

I quote the following madrigal from Canzonets^ or little 
short Songs to three voices, newly published, by Thomas Mor- 
ley, 1593- It preserves a usual Italian form, except for the 
variation of metre : 

Say, gentle nymphs, that tread these mountains, 
Whilst sweetly you sit playing. 
Saw you my Daphne straying 

Along your crystal fountains ? 
If that you chance to meet her. 
Kiss her and kindly greet her ; 

Then these sweet garlands take her. 
And say from me, I never will forsake her.^ 

Here is another illustrating a form consisting only of tercets. 
It appears prefixed to Morley's Ballets to Five Voices, and is 
signed M. M. D., which has been thought to stand for 
Master Michael Drayton : 



Such was old Orpheus' cunning, 
That senseless things drew near 
And herds of beasts to hear him 



The stock, the stone, the ox, the ass, came running. 
Morley ! but this enchanting 
To thee, to be the music god, is wanting ; 

1 Musa Madrigalesca, p. 79. 



INTRODUCTION. Ivii 

And yet thou needst not fear him ; 

Draw thou the shepherds still, and bonny lasses, 
And envy him not stocks, stones, oxen, asses. ^ 

Eventually the freer forms superseded those more closely 
imitating the Italian, until verses termed madrigals became 
indistinguishable from other short poems. Drummond, fol- 
lowing the earlier work of his friend, Sir William Alexander, 
attempted a revival of the madrigal as of the sonnet. The 
madrigals of Drummond range from five to fifteen verses, 
and are composed, for the most part, on the general system 
of tercets, followed by a concluding couplet ; they are very 
irregular in rime arrangement, and confined almost entirely 
to a free alternation of verses of five accents and of three, 
and to masculine rimes.^ It is hardly necessary to state 
that the madrigal was commonly set to music. ^ 

The terzine is a continuous measure of five accents 
riming ab a^ bcb, cdc, etc., introduced into English by Wyatt 
and Surrey. It is a narrative rather than a lyric measure, 
and is rare in Elizabethan poetry, although used by Sidney, 
Daniel, Jonson, and Drummond, for eclogues, occasional 
verse, and once in a somewhat lyrical song by the first.* 
Sidney, followed by Spenser, Barnes, Alexander, Drummond, 

'^ Percy Society Publications^ XIII, 21; the same volume contains 
three madrigals of Watson's, one of them in ottava rima, another in 
couplets. Watson appears to have left other poems in this form ; these 
I have been unable to see. For further illustrations of the madrigal 
in its various English forms see pp. 83, 90, 112, 127, 132, 133, 155, 161, 
179-81, and 193. The epigrammatic nature of the form is nicely 
preserved in Jonson's Hour Glass, p. 193, and in the madrigal from 
Greaves' Songs, p. 132. 

2 Cf. pp. 179-81, 206. 

8 An excellent work on the bibliography of English Song Books is 
the Bibliotheca Madrigaliana, by E. F. Rimbault, 1847. See, also, 
Oliphant's A Short Account of Madrigals, London, 1836, and an article 
in the British and Foreign Review for 1845. 

* Grosart's Sidney, III, 50. 



Iviii INTRODUCTION. 

and others, also employs the highly artificial sestine in its 
various modifications, for an explanation of the structure of 
which I must refer the reader to Dr. Schipper.^ 

The canzo7i^- which in the hands of Petrarch had consisted 
of a highly organized lyrical form extending from five to ten 
stanzas of from nine to twenty verses, each with an added 
co7Jimiato or ejivoy^ was rarely practiced by the English poets 
of this age. Barnabe Barnes affords the best specimens, 
notably in his Canzo?i III, the rimes of which exactly repro- 
duce the arrangement of those of the second Canzone of 
Petrarch : O aspettata in del, beata e bella ; although Barnes 
uses only decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic verses, whilst 
Petrarch employs here, as customarily, a metre occasionally 
varied with shorter verses. Barnes' canzon is made up of 
seven stanzas of fifteen verses, the rimes of which are 
arranged upon this system: abcbac, cdee def df; the 
two parts forming what is technically known as the fronte 
and the sirima, followed by a commiato or conclusion, which 
reproduces the rime arrangement of the sirima. The other 
canzons of Barnes, and those of Sir William Alexander,^ 
are freer in construction ; and other similar long stanzaic 
structures shade off into irregular odes, epithalamia or 
other stanzas, losing entirely any sense of an original, 
Italian, classical, or English. The term thus came to be 
loosely employed, as may be seen by reference to Bolton's 
two stanzas on p. 109, or Greene's canzone in common 
metre.'* As to the diminutive canzonet, the term is of 

'^ Engl. Metr., II, 902 seq. ; for examples see Barnes' Parthenophil 
and Parthenope, Arber's English Garner, V, \o(i-^l(^ passim ; also Sid- 
ney's Arcadia, Grosart's Poems of Sidney, III, 48, and II, 197 and 202, 
where still greater metrical refinements are practiced in the double 
sestine and " a Crown of Dizaines and Pendent." 

2 Italian canzone, originally a song unaccompanied. 

^Aurora, 1604, ed. 1870, pp. i, 28. 

^ Poems of Greene, ed. Bell, p. 61. 



INTRODUCTION. lix 

infrequent use in English poetry, and seems to have been 
employed much, as in Provencal and Italian, to denote any 
short lyric, generally not exceeding a single stanza. Drayton 
uses the term for a poem of three stanzas of double quatrains,^ 
and elsewhere for a quatorzain.^ 

So much has been written, wisely and unwisely, on the 
sonnet^ that some excuse must be offered for here repeating 
the particulars of an often repeated tale. For minuter 
matters I must refer the reader to Leigh Hunt's charm- 
ing essay, prefixed to his Book of the Son?iet, to Schipper, 
as above, and to the many excellent discussions of this 
fertile theme elsewhere ;^ some repetition cannot be avoidjd. 
Mr. Waddington very properly objects to the customary 
terms "Italian sonnet," or "Petrarchan sonnet," applied to 
a certain type, as other types were nearly as popular and 
quite as Italian, whilst the type in question "was written 
by Guittone many years before Petrarch adopted it as his 
model."* Even more objectionable than these mere inaccu- 
racies are the opprobrious epithets frequently applied to 
those English quatorzains which depart from the various 
Italian types, the more especially that even among those 
English sonnets which most minutely observe the number 
and arrangement of the Petrarchan rimes, there are few 
which do not violate other rules of the Italian sonnet as 
strict, if not so obvious. 

The term, sonnet, is very elastic as employed by 
Elizabethan writers ; and it was commonly used, as originally 
in Italy, to signify a short lyric of almost any form, or as 
a sort of generic term including the canzon, madrigal, ode, 

1 See p. 196 below. 

2 Idea, Son. Ixi, ed. 1605. 

3 See also L. Biadene, Morfologia del Sonetto nei secoli XIII e XIV, 
in Monad's Studj di Filologia Romanza, IV, 1-234. 

* English Sonnets by Living Writers, p. 201. 



Ix AV TR OD UC TION. 

and what not.^ By the more cajeful, however, the term 
came more and more to be restricted to signify a quartor- 
zain or integral form of fourteen verses^ devoted to the 
expression of a single thought or passion, ordinarily that 
of love. The classical Italian sonnet, which is always 
hendecasyllabic except for comic effect, was composed of 
two metrical systems, — the octave, consisting of two quat- 
rains or basi^ and the sestet, consisting of two tercets or 
volte. Each system has its own rimes ; the quatrains, two, 
either 'enclosed' {abba), or alternate {abab), generally 
both alike, though occasionally otherwise arranged (as 
abab, babd)\ the tercets, two or three, commonly alter- 
nate {cdc, dcd or cde, cde), though several other arrange- 
ments were allowable, even a concluding couplet in one 
form. It may be added that the earliest Italian form was 
composed upon four rimes, alternate throughout the two 
systems. 

With such a freedom in bondage for a model, with a 
monosyllabic tongue like English, in which rimes are far 
less frequent than in Italian, and in which metrical tra- 
ditions such as the quatrain and the riming couplet already 
existed, certain results might be expected in the attempt to 
transplant the sonnet, (i) The metre would adjust itself 
to the language, and exhibit a preponderance of masculine 
rimes, thus becoming decasyllabic. (2) The alternate rime 
would be preferred to the enclosed rime throughout, (3) with 
a change of rime rather than a frequent repetition of the 
same rime. (4) Lastly, the Italian restraint, that sought 
the avoidance of a closing couplet that the unity of the 
entire poem might not be destroyed by an undue prom- 
inence of any part, would be sacrificed to the more 

1 Cf. the forms called sonnets by Greene, ^Yatson, Greville, or 
Breton. 

2 Cf. the title, Drayton's Idea's Mirror : Amours in Quatorzains. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixi 

apparent effect of climax and epigrammatic vigor. The 
result is before us : a series of three quatrains, riming 
independently, followed and closed by a couplet {abab, 
cdcdj efef, gg), the form of the sonnet of Shakespeare 
and of the majority of contemporary sonneteers. 

But it is not to be supposed that all this was accom- 
plished without experiment. The forms of the Elizabethan 
quatorzain, to say nothing of derivative stanzas of other 
lengths, are almost endless. Thus Wyatt practiced many 
sonnet forms, for the most part preserving the Italian struc- 
ture of the octave, though falling in the sestet into the final 
couplet ; whilst Surrey soon hit upon the form afterwards 
adopted by Shakespeare, and practiced it almost to the 
exclusion of all others. Again Sidney, who was intimate 
with Italian literature, good and indift'erent, experimented 
with the sonnet, and has probably produced it in a greater 
diversity of form than any other Elizabethan. While prevail- 
ingly strict as to the number and arrangement of his rimes, 
Sidney too falls into the usual preference for the concluding 
couplet. On the other hand, Spenser characteristically 
invented the only original English quatorzain, a link sonnet 
running abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee, undoubtedly suggested by 
his exercise of the stanza of his Faery Queen, and practiced 
it practically to the exclusion of all other forms. ^ Among 
later sonneteers, the form which Surrey had introduced 
became overwhelmingly the most popular, affecting even 
such Italianate poets as Barnes ; while Daniel, Drayton, 
Shakespeare, and the host of minor and occasional writers of 
sonnets are given wholly over to this form. Constable, who 

1 Of Spenser's linked form of sonnet Leigh Hunt writes : " It is 
surely not so happy as that of the Italian sonnet. The rime seems at 
once less responsive and always interfering ; and the music has no 
longer its major and minor divisions." {Book of the Sonnet, I, 74.) It 
may be doubted if every one will agree with this verdict. 



Ixii INTRODUCTION. 

lived much abroad and whose sonnets were greatly admired 
in his day, was almost alone in insisting upon the Italian 
types ; and even he was not proof against Surrey's arrange- 
ment of rimes or against the seductive closing couplet.^ 

Without entering into the details of the diversities of the 
Elizabethan quatorzain, the following data may be sufficient 
to indicate their extent. Quatorzains in blank verse were 
written by Spenser in his earlier translations of the Visions 
of Bellay ;'^ on one and on two rimes — occasionally on the 
same word or words — by Sidney, Surrey, and Wyatt;^ on 
three rimes by Sidney.^ Four and five rimes constitute the 
normal Italian number, while Spenser's linked sonnet and 
some others exhibit five, and Daniel the exceptional num- 
ber, six.^ Seven is the ordinary number of rimes in the 
sonnet of Surrey and Shakespeare. Again, besides (i) the 
three quatrains and a couplet of this common form, and 
(2) the two quatrains and sestet variations of the Italian 
types, the rime arrangement of the Elizabethan quatorzain 
exhibits occasionally (3) a series of seven couplets : aa^ bb, 
cc, dd, ee,ff, gg;^ (4) a series of four triplets followed by 
a couplet : aaa, bbb, ccc, ddd^ ee;"^ (5) two sestets fol- 
lowed by a couplet — if, indeed, it be not better described 
as an alternation of couplets and quatrains — a very unusual 
structure of Gascoigne's : a a, bcbc, dd, efef,gg} Lastly, 

1 For specimens of the Italian type see his Diana, Nos. 11, 13, 21, 
23, 25, etc. 2 -^6.. Grosart, III, Appendix, p. 231. 

3 See a highly successful example on two rimes in this vol., p. 1 1 ; on 
two words Astrophel and Stella, Son. Ixxxix. 

4 Ed. Grosart, III, i. ^ jjelia, Son. li. 

* Cf. Drummond's Urania, Son. ix, Works, ed. 1856, p. 86; and 
Donne, To Mr. I. L., Riverside ed., p. 40. 

■^ Cf. Donne, To Mr. T. W. and Incerto, ibid., pp. 34, 35. 

8 Cf . Hazlitt's Gascoigne, 1, 426, and the present editor's monograph 
on that poet. Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, Series in 
Philology, Literature and Archaeology, II, No. 4, pp. 34, 35. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixiii 

(6) Greene and Drayton have in diverse ways achieved the 
feat of dividing a quatorzain into two equal parts ; Greene 
by a simple combination of two stanzas of the rime royal : 
ababbcc, dedeeff, Drayton by a more complex succes- 
sion of couplets and triplets : aabbccc, ddeefff} As to 
rime, as already stated, modern English demands that the 
majority of rimes be masculine, and most English sonnets 
are constructed on such rimes alone ; a mixture of 
feminine rimes, however, is not infrequent ; whilst Shake- 
speare and others have written quatorzains wholly in 
hendecasyllabics.^ Sir Thomas Wyatt wrote a quatorzain 
with a sonnet-like arrangement of rimes in octosyllabics, 
and was followed by Shakespeare.^ A more frequent 
departure is the quatorzain in Alexandrines practiced 
several times by Sidney with the rime arrangement of the 
sonnet, and with remarkable success.* Raleigh's Vision 
iipofi the Faery Queen in a quatorzain of seven poulter's 
measures with the verses of twelve, fifteen, and more lines 
written upon the general analogy of the sonnet, certainly 
takes us beyond the most indulgent range that could be 
granted this topic. 

The Italian division of the sonnet into two systems by a 
pause in the sense at the conclusion of the octave, and the 
Italian avoidance of enjambement or overflow between the 
quatrains and the tercets were never closely observed in 
the Elizabethan sonnet, which from the very first asserted 
its freedom in these particulars, and its right to be consid- 

1 Cf. Greene's Poems, ed. Bell, p. no, and Drayton's Idea, Son. Ixii, 
ed. 1603. See also the verses from Wilbye's Second Set of Madrigals, 
p. 148 of this volume, in which a quatorzain, also divided into stanzas, 
exhibits the following mixture of rimed and unrimed verses : abed eff, 
ghijkll. 

2 Cf. Shakespeare's Son. xx, and Greville's quatorzain, p. 17 of this 
volume. ^ Wyatt, Aldine ed., p. 20, and Shakespeare, Son. cxlv. 

* Astrophel and Stella, Son. i, Ixxvi, Ixxvii, and cii. 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 

ered indigenous. It is curious that Spenser's unrimed son- 
nets are stricter in these matters than his later Amoretti. 
It was but natural that the practice of three quatrains 
of independent rimes should obliterate the distinction 
between the two systems, and that the closing couplet 
should have a tendency to draw the whole poem to a final 
climax. As Mr. T. Hall Caine has well pointed out, 
"the metrical* structure is plainly determined by the intel- 
lectual modeling. . . . Apart from all regard for structural 
divergence, we have merely to set side by side the intel- 
lectual plotting of a sonnet by Petrarch and that of a 
sonnet by Spenser, to see clearly that this form of verse in 
England is a distinct growth. In the one, we perceive a 
conscious centralization of some idea systematically sub- 
divided, with each of its parts allotted a distinctive place, so 
that to dislodge anything would be to destroy the whole. 
In the other, we recognize a facet of an idea or sentiment, 
so presented as to work up from concrete figure to abstract 
application. The one constitutes a rounded unity, the other 
is a development; the one is thrown off at the point at which 
it has become quintessential and a thing in itself, the other 
is still in process of evolution." ^ 

I quote the following sonnet of Constable as a fair 
specimen of the stricter Italian method of maintaining the 
stanzaic structure of the two systems. No really great son- 
net ever preserved the syllogistic requirements of Quadrio, 
by which the first quatrain stated the proposition, the second 
proved it, the tercets successively confirming the proposition 
and drawing the conclusion : 

Dear, though from me your gracious looks depart, 
And of that comfort do myself bereave, 
Which both I did deserve'and did receive; 

Triumph not over much in this my smart. 

1 Sonnets of Three Centuries, Preface, pp. xi and xii. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixv 

Nay rather, they which now enjoy thy heart 

For fear just cause of mourning should conceive, 
Lest thou inconstant shouldst their trust deceive, 

Which Hke unto the weather changing art. 

For in foul weather birds sing often will 

In hope of fair, and in fair time will cease, 
For fear fair time will not continue still : 

So they may mourn which have thy heart possessed. 
For fear of change, and hope of change may ease 
Their hearts whom grief of change doth now molest^ 

For a contrast to the phrasing of this sonnet, and for the 
independence, spirit, and beauty of many an Elizabethan 
quatorzain which has cast the restrictions of Italy to the 
winds, I may confidently refer the student to even the small 
number of sonnets from the Elizabethan masters contained 
in this volume. 

The acceptance of the Italian madrigal and sonnet as 
models, their adaptation to the demands of the English 
language and habit of thought, and their value in training 
English poets to an utterance more truly their own, may be 
taken as typical of the literary trend of the singularly versa- 
tile age which could evolve a great national drama out of 
the frigidities of Senecan tragedy and the trivialities of 
contemporary Italian comedy. We may regard the influ- 
ence of Italy, as far as the lyric is concerned, as completely 
assimilated by even the weaker poets tow^ards the close of 
Elizabeth's reign. There was now a demand for something 
more than imitation, and the greater men rose to the occa- 
sion, although seeking different means for the accomplish- 
ment of the same end. Thus Shakespeare, though now 
passing out of his distinctively lyrical period, found his way 
in an increasing and masterly freedom ; Jonson, in a scarcely 

1 Sonnets fro7ti Todd's MS., ed. Pickering, p. 29. 



Ixvi INTRODUCTION. 

less masterly restraint ; whilst Donne displayed the daring 
of an individualism that enabled him, while his poems 
were yet in manuscript, to exercise upon his contemporaries 
the effect of an accepted classic. 

The story of Shakespeare's gradual enfranchisement from 
the trammels of imitation and the adherence to ephemeral 
rules of art has been often told, and is as true of his work, 
considered metrically, as from any other point of view. With 
increasing grasp of mind came increasing power and aban- 
don in style and versification ; and this applies to the 
incidental lyrics of his plays (as far as the data enables us 
to judge), as it applies to the sweep and cadence of his 
blank verse. ^ 

On the other hand, Jonson, despite his unusual ver- 
satility in the invention and practice of new and successful 
lyrical forms, displays the conservative temper throughout, 
in avoiding mixed meters, stanzas of irregular structure or 
of differing lengths, and in such small matters as his careful 
indication of elision where the syllable exceeds the strict 
number demanded by the verse-scheme. Many of Jonson's 
utterances, too, attest his detestation of license {e.g.^ "that 
Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging"); his 
esteem of the formal element in literature {e.g., "that Shake- 
speare wanted art"); or his dislike to innovation.'^ Towards 
the close of his life, Jonson grew increasingly fond of the 
decasyllabic rimed couplet, the meter which was to become 
the maid of all work in the next generation. This meter 
it was that he defended in theory against the heresies 
of Campion and Daniel,^ and it was in this meter that he 

1 There is a wide step in versification between Silvia or the Song 
from the Merchant of Venice (pp. 56 and 82), and the free cadenced 
songs of the Tempest (p. 154). 

2 Sqq Jo?tson^s Co7tversations, Sh. Soc. PtibL, p. 3. 

2 See, especially, the opening passage of the Conversations concern- 
ing his Epic, " all in couplets, for he detesteth all other rimes. Said he 



INTRODUCTION. Ixvii 

wrote, at times with a regularity of accent and antithetical 
form that reminds us of the great hand of Dryden in the 
next age.^ Jonson's tightening of the reins of regularity in 
the couplet and in lyric forms — in which latter, despite 
his inspiration, Herrick followed his master with loving 
observance of the law — is greatly in contrast with the 
course of dramatic blank verse, which, beginning in the 
legitimate freedom of Shakespeare, descended, through the 
looseness of Fletcher and Massinger, to the license of 
Davenant and Crowne. 

By far the most independent lyrical metrist of this age 
was John Donne, who has been, it seems to me, quite as 
much misunderstood on this side as on the side of his 
eccentricities of thought and expression. In a recent 
chapter on Donne, in several other respects far from satis- 
factory, Mr. Edmund Gosse has treated this particular topic 
very justly. Speaking of Donne's " system of prosody," he 
says: "The terms 'irregular,' 'unintelligible' and 'viciously 
rugged,' are commonly used in describing it, and it seems 
even to be supposed by some critics that Donne did not 
know how to scan. This last supposition may be rejected 
at once ; what there was to know about poetry was known 
to Donne. But it seems certain that he intentionally intro- 
duced a revolution into English versification. It was doubt- 
less a rebellion against the smooth and somewhat nerveless 
iambic flow of Spenser and the earliest contemporaries of 
Shakespeare, that Donne invented his violent mode of 
breaking up the line into quick and slow beats." Mr. Gosse 

had written a Discourse of Poesie, both against Campion and Daniel, 
. . . where he proves couplets to be the bravest sort of verse, especially 
when they are broken like hexameters," i.e., exhibit a strong medial 
caesura. 

1 See, especially, the later epistles and occasional verses, such as 
the Epigrams to the Lord Treasurer of England, To my Muse, etc. 



Ixviii IN TROD UC TION. 

finds this innovation the result of a desire for ''new and more 
varied effects," adding : " The iambic rimed line of Donne 
has audacities such as are permitted to his blank verse by 
Milton, and although the felicities are rare in the older poet 
instead of being almost incessant, as in the later, Donne at 
his best is not less melodious than Milton." ^ We need not 
be detained by the query, whether it was not the strange 
personality of the poet rather than any unusual desire for 
" new and more varied effects " which produced a result so 
unusual. It is certain, that for inventive variety, fitness, and 
success, the lyrical stanzas of Donne are surpassed by 
scarcely any Elizabethan poet. In short, Donne seems to 
have applied to the lyric the freedom of the best dramatic 
verse of his age, and stood as the exponent of novelty and 
individualism in form precisely as Jonson stood for classic 
conservatism. 

We have thus seen how in form as well as in thought the 
governing influence upon the English Elizabethan lyric was 
the influence of Italy, the Italy of the Renaissance ; how, 
organically considered, there was a steady advance towards 
greater variety of measure and inventiveness in stanzaic 
form, and a general growth of taste in such matters as 
alliteration, the distribution of pauses, and the management 
of rime. As might be expected, the analogies of certain 
forms of verse to certain forms of thought were far less 
rigidly preserved in the English literature of this day than 
in that of Italy ; and there is scarcely a form of English verse, 
of which it can be said that it was restricted to a given 
species of poetry. Spenser less completely than Sidney is 
the exponent of the Italianate school of poetry in England ; 
for in Sidney is to be found not only its pastoral presentation, 
but the sonnet sequence and the madrigal, both long to 
remain the favorite utterance of contemporary lyrists. But 

1 The Jacobean Poets, p. 6i f. 



INTROD UC TION. Ixix 

even if Sidney was the representative of the Italianate school, 
the lyric took almost at once in his hands, and in those of 
Spenser and Shakespeare, the characteristics of a genuine 
vernacular utterance which it afterwards maintained, adapting 
itself in the minutiae of style and versification as in the 
character of thought and thejne. The Italian influence, 
although completely assimilated especially among dramatists 
like Dekker, Fletcher, and Beaumont, and in Browne and 
the later poetry of Drayton, still continued dominant in 
poets such as Davison, Drummond, and the writers of 
madrigals ; but failed, as the classic influence too failed, to 
reach Donne. It was here that the new classic influence 
arose with Ben Jonson, an assimilated classicism — as far as 
possible removed from the imitative classicism of Harvey 
and Spenser in the days of the Areopagus ; and it was 
this spirit that came finally to prevail — not that of Donne 
which substituted one kind of radicalism for another ; — it 
was this spirit of conservative nicety of style and regularity 
of versification that led on through Herrick and Waller to 
the classicism of Dryden and Pope. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



George Gascoigne, The Ad- 
ventures of Master Ferdinando 
leronmii, Posies, 1575. 

SONNET. 

The stately dames of Rome their pearls did wear 

About their necks to beautify their name : 

But she whom I do serve, her pearls doth bear 

Close in her mouth, and, smiling, shew the same. 

No wonder, then, though every word she speaks 5 

A jewel seem in judgment of the wise. 

Since that her sugared tongue the passage breaks 

Between two rocks, bedecked with pearls of price. 

Her hair of gold, her front of ivory — 

A bloody heart within so white a breast — 10 

Her teeth of pearl, lips ruby, crystal eye, 

Needs must I honor her above the rest. 

Since she is formed of none other mould 

But ruby, crystal, ivory, pearl and gold. 



George Gascoigne, Posies, 

Flowers, 1575. 

THE STRANGE PASSION OF A LOVER. 

Amid my bale I bathe in bliss, 
I swim in heaven, I sink in hell ; 

I find amends for every miss 

And yet my moan no tongue can tell. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I live and love, what would you more ? 5 

As never lover lived before. 

I laugh sometimes with little lust, 

So jest I oft and feel no joy ; 
Mine ease is builded all on trust, 

And yet mistrust breeds mine annoy. 10 

I live and lack, I lack and have, 
I have and miss the thing I crave. 

These things seem strange, yet are they true ; 

Believe me, sweet, my state is such. 
One pleasure which I would eschew 15 

Both slakes my grief and breeds my grutch. 
So doth one pain which I would shun 
Renew my joys, where grief begun. 

Then like the lark that passed the night 

In heavy sleep, with cares oppressed, 20 

Yet when she spies the pleasant light 

She sends sweet notes from out her breast : 

So sing I now because I think 

How joys approach when sorrows shrink. 

And as fair Philomene, again, 25 

Can watch and sing when others sleep. 

And taketh pleasure in her pain 

To wray the woe that makes her weep : 

So sing I now for to bewray 

The loathsome life I lead alway. 30 

The which to thee, dear wench, I write, 
That know'st my mirth, but not my moan. 

I pray God grant thee deep delight. 
To live in joys when I am gone. 

I cannot live, it will not be, 35 

I die to think to part from thee. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



Sir Walter Raleigh (?) in 
MS. Rawl. 85, fol. 124, date 
uncertain. 



PILGRIM TO PILGRIM. 

As you came from the holy land 

Of Walsinghame, 
Met you not with my true love 

By the way as you came ? 

How shall I know your true love, 5 

That have met many one, 
As I w^ent to the holy land, 

That have come, that have gone ? 

She is neither white nor brown, 

But as the heavens fair ; 10 

There is none hath a form so divine 

In the earth or the air. 

Such a one did I meet, good sir, 

Such an angel-like face, 
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear, 15 

By her gait, by her grace. 

She hath left me here all alone. 

All alone, as unknown. 
Who sometimes did me lead with herself, 

And me loved as her own. 20 

What's the cause that she leaves you alone. 

And a new way doth take. 
Who loved you once as her own. 

And her joy did you make? 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I have loved her all my youth, 25 

But now old, as you see, 
Love likes not the falling fruit 

From the withered tree. 

Know that Love is a careless child, 

And forgets promise past ; 30 

He is blind, he is deaf when he list, 

And in faith never fast. 

His desire is a dureless content. 

And a trustless joy ; 
He is won with a world of despair 35 

And is lost with a toy. 

Of womankind such indeed is the love, 

Or the word love abused, 
Under which many childish desires 

And conceits are excused. 40 

But true love is a durable fire. 

In the mind ever burning, 
Never sick, never old, never dead, 

From itself never turning. 



Thomas Lodge, Scilla's Meta- 
morphosis, etc., 1 589 ; written 
about 1577. 

LAMENT. 

The earth, late choked with showers, 

Is now arrayed in green, 
Her bosom springs with flowers, 
The air dissolves her teen ; 

The heavens laugh at her glory, 
Yet bide I sad and sorry. 



EDMUND SPENSER. 5 

The woods are decked with leaves, 

And trees are clothed gay, 
And Flora, crowned with sheaves, 

With oaken boughs doth play ; lo 

Where I am clad in black, 
The token of my wrack. 

The birds upon the trees 

Do sing with pleasant voices, 
And chant in their degrees 15 

Their loves and lucky choices ; 
When I, whilst they are singing. 
With sighs mine arms am wringing. 

The thrushes seek the shade. 

And I my fatal grave ; 20 

Their flight to heaven is made. 
My walk on earth I have ; 

They free, I thrall ; they jolly, 
I sad and pensive wholly. 



Edmund Spenser, The Shep- 
heardes Calender, August, 1 579. 

PER/GOT AND WILLIE'S ROUNDELAY. 

It fell upon a holly eve. 

Hey ho hollidaye, 
When holly fathers wont to shrieve : 

Now gynneth this roundelay. 
Sitting upon a hill so hye. 

Hey ho the high hyll. 
The while my flocke did feede thereby, 

The while the shepheard selfe did spill : 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I saw the bouncing Bellibone, 

Hey ho Bonibell, lo 

Tripping over the dale alone, 

She can trippe it very well : 
Well decked in a frocke of gray, 

Hey ho gray is greete, 
And in a kirtle of greene saye, 15 

The greene is for maydens meete : 
A chapelet on her head she wore, 

Hey ho chapelet, 
Of sweete violets therein was store. 

She sweeter then the violet. 20 

My sheepe did leave theyr wonted foode, 

Hey ho seely sheepe, 
And gazd on her, as they were wood, 

Woode as he, that did them keepe. 
As the bonilasse passed bye, 25 

Hey ho bonilasse, 
She rovde at me with glauncing eye, 

As cleare as the christall glasse : 
All as the sunnye beame so bright, 

Hey ho the sunne beame, 30 

Glaunceth from Phoebus face forthright. 

So love into my hart did streame : 
Or as the thonder cleaves the cloudes, 

Hey ho the thonder. 
Wherein the lightsome levin shroudes, 35 

So cleaves thy soule asonder : 
Or as Dame Cynthias silver raye 

Hey ho the moonelight. 
Upon the glyttering wave doth playe : 

Such play is a pitteous plight. 40 

The glaunce into my heart did glide. 

Hey ho the glyder. 



EDMUND SPENSER. 7 

Therewith my soule was sharply gryde, 

Such woundes soone wexen wider. 
Hasting to raunch the arrow out, 45 

Hey ho Perigot, 
I left the head in my hart roote : 

It was a desperate shot. 
There it ranckleth ay more and more, 

Hey ho the arrowe, 50 

Ne can I find salve for my sore : 

Love is a carelesse sorrowe. 
And though my bale with death I bought, 

Hey ho heavie cheere, 
Yet should thilk lasse not from my thought : 55 

So you may buye gold to deare. 
But whether in paynefuU love I pyne, 

Hey ho pinching payne, 
Or thrive in welth, she shalbe mine. 

But if thou can her obteine. 60 

And if for gracelesse greefe I dye, 

Hey ho gracelesse griefe, 
Witnesse, shee slewe me with her eye : 

Let thy follye be the priefe. 
And you, that sawe it, simple shepe, 65 

Hey ho the fayre flocke, 
For priefe thereof, my death shall weepe. 

And mone with many a mocke. 
So learnd I love on a hollye eve, 

Hey ho holidaye, 70 

That ever since my hart did greve. 

Now endeth our roundelay. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, 
in Breton's Bower of Delights, 
ed. before 1 592 ; written be- 
fore 1580. 

FANCY AND DESIRE. 

Come hither, shepherd's swain ; 
Sir, what do you require ? 
I pray thee shew to me thy name. 
My name is Fond Desire. 

When wert thou born, Desire? 5 

In pride and pomp of May. 
By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot ? 
By Self-Conceit, men say. 

Tell me, who was thy nurse.? 

Fresh Youth in sugared joy. 10 

What was thy meat and daily food ? 
Sad sighs and great annoy. 

What hadst thou then to drink ? 
Unfeigned lovers' tears. 
What cradle wert thou rocked ml 15 

In hope devoid of fears. 

What lulled thee to thy sleep ? 

Sweet thoughts which liked one best. 
And where is now thy dwelling place ? 

In gentle hearts I rest. 20 

Doth company displease ? 
It doth in many one. 
Where would Desire then choose to be ? 
He loves to muse alone. 



SIR PHTLIP SIDNEY, 9 

What feedeth most thy sight ? 25 

To gaze on beauty still. 
Whom findest thou [the] most thy foe ? 
Disdain of my good will. 

Will ever age or death 

Bring thee unto decay ? 3° 

No, no, Desire both lives and dies 
A thousand times a day. 

Then, Fond Desire, farewell, 
Thou art no make for me, 
I should be loath, methinks, to dwell 35 

With such a one as thee. 



Sir Philip Sidney, from MS. 
Cottoni Fosthuma, date uncer- 
tain. 

WOOING STUFF. 

Faint Amorist, what ! dost thou think 

To taste love's honey, and not drink 

One dram of gall? or to devour 

A world of sweet and taste no sour? 

Dost thou ever think to enter 

The Elysian fields, that dar'st not venture 

In Charon's barge? a lover's mind 

Must use to sail with every wind. 

He that loves, and fears to try. 

Learns his ^mistress to deny. 

Doth she chide thee ? 'tis to shew it 

That thy coldness makes her do it. 

Is she silent? is she mute? 



10 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Silence fully grants thy suit. 

Doth she pout, and leave the room? 15 

Then she goes to bid thee come. 

Is she sick? Why then be sure 

She invites thee to the cure. 

Doth she cross thy suit with No? 

Tush, she loves to hear thee woo. 20 

Doth she call the faith of man 

In question ? Nay, she loves thee than ; 

And if ere she makes a blot, 

She's lost if that thou hit'st her not. 

He that after ten denials 25 

Dares attempt no further trials, 

Hath no warrant to acquire 

The dainties of his chaste desire. 



Sir Philip Sidney, quoted in 
^\xXXt.v^-3,\xC^ The Art of Eng- 
lish Poesy, 1 589 ; written about 
1580. 

DITTY: HEART EXCHANGE. 

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, 
By just exchange one for the other given : 
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, 
There never was a bargain better driven. 

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his. 

His heart in me keeps him and me in one. 
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides. 
He loves my heart, for once it was his own, 
I cherish his because in me it bides. 

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his. • 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 11 

Sir Philip Sidney, The Count- 
ess of Pembroke's Arcadia, 
ed. 1 598 ; written about 1 580. 

SONNET: TO SLEEP. 

Lock up, fair lids, the treasure of my heart. 

Preserve those beams, this age's only light ; 

To her sweet sense, sweet Sleep, some ease impart — 

Her sense too weak to bear her spirit's might. 

And while, O Sleep, thou closest up her sight ! 5 

Her sight, where Love did forge his fairest dart, — 

O harbor all her parts in easeful plight ; 

Let no strange dream make her fair body start. 

But yet, O dream, if thou wilt not depart 

In this rare subject from thy common right, 'c 

But wilt thyself in such a seat delight : 

Then take my shape and play a lover's part, 

Kiss her from me, and say unto her sprite, 

Till her eyes shine I live in darkest night. 



Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophel 
and Stella, 1591; written be- 
fore 1582. 

FIRST SONG. 
Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth, 
Which now my breast surcharged to music lendeth ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 
Only in you my song begins and endeth. 

Who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure ! 
Who keeps the key of Nature's chiefest treasure ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due. 
Only for you the heaven forgat all measure. 



1 2 E LIZ ABE THAN L YRICS. 

Who hath the lips where wit in fairness reigneth ! 

Who womankind at once both decks and staineth ! lo 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 
Only by you Cupid his crown maintaineth. 

Who hath the feet, whose step all sweetness planteth ! 
Who else, for whom Fame worthy trumpets wanteth ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 15 

Only to you her sceptre Venus granteth. 

Who hath the breast, whose milk doth patience nourish ! 
Whose grace is suchr, that when it chides doth cherish ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 
Only through you the tree of life doth flourish. 20 

Who hath the hand, which without stroke subdueth ! 
Who long-dead beauty with increase reneweth ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due. 
Only at you all envy hopeless rueth. 

Who hath the hair, which loosest fastest tieth ! 25 

Who makes a man live then glad when he dieth ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due. 
Only of you the flatterer never lieth. 

Who hath the voice, which soul from senses sunders ! 
Whose force but yours the bolts of beauty thunders ! 30 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 
Only with you not miracles are wonders. 

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth. 
Which now my breast o'ercharged to music lendeth ! 

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, 35 

Only in you my song begins and endeth. 



SIJ? PHILIP SIDNEY. 13 

SONNETS. 

XXXI. 

With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies ! 

How silently, and with how wan a face ! 

What, may it be that even in heavenly place 

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries ! 

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 5 

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, 

I read it in thy looks ; thy languished grace. 

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 

Then ev'n of fellowship, O moon, tell me, 

Is constant love deemed there but want of wit ? lo 

Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? 

Do they above love to be loved, and yet 

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess ? ^ 

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? 

XXXIX. 

Come, Sleep ! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, 

The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, 

The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release. 

The indifferent judge between the high and low ; 

With shield of proof shield me from out the prease 5 

Of these fierce darts Despair at me doth throw : 

make in me those civil wars to cease ; 

1 will good tribute pay, if thou do so. 

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 

A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, 'c 

A rosy garland and a weary head : 

And if these things, as being thine in right. 

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, 

Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see. 



14 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



LXXXIV. 

High way, since you my chief Parnassus be, 

And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, 

Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet 

More oft than to a chamber-melody ; 

Now blessed you bear onward blessed me 

To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet ; 

My Muse and I must you of duty greet 

With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. 

Be you still fair, honored by public heed. 

By no encroachment wronged, nor time forgot, 

Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed ; 

And that you know I envy you no lot 

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, — 

Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss. 

XC. 

Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame. 

Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee ; 

Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history : 

If thou praise not, all other praise is shame. 

Nor so ambitious am I as to frame 

A nest for my young praise in laurel tree : 

In truth, I swear, I wish not there should be 

Graved in my epitaph a poet's name. 

Ne, if I would, could I just title make. 

That any laud thereof to me should grow, 

Without my plumes from others' wings I take : 

For nothing from my wit or will doth flow, 

Since all my words thy beauty doth endite, 

And Love doth hold my hand and makes me write. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 15 

Sir Philip Sidney, Certain Son- 
nets, The Arcadia, ed. 1598. 

A DIRGE:- LOVE IS DEAD. 

Ring out your bells, let mourning shews be spread ; 
For Love is dead : 

All Love is dead, infected 
With plague of deep disdain : 

Worth, as nought worth, rejected, 5 

And Faith fair scorn doth gain. 

From so ungrateful fancy, 

From such a female franzy. 

From them that use men thus, 

Good Lord, deliver us ! 10 

Weep, neighbors, weep ; do you not hear it said 
That Love is dead ? 

His death-bed, peacock's folly, 
His winding-sheet is shame, 

His will, false-seeming holy, 15 

His sole exec'tor, blame. 

From so ungrateful fancy. 

From such a female franzy. 

From them that use men thus, 

Good Lord, deliver us ! 20 

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read, 
For Love is dead ; 

Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth 
My mistress' marble heart, 

Which epitaph containeth, ' 25 

* Her eyes were once his dart.* 

From so ungrateful fancy. 

From such a female franzy. 

From them that use men thus, 

Good Lord, deliver us ! 30 



16 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Alas, I lie : rage hath this error bred ; 
Love is not dead ; 

Love is not dead, but sleepeth 
In her unmatched mind. 

Where she his counsel keepeth, 35 

Till due deserts she find. 

Therefore from so vile fancy, 

To call such wit a franzy, 

Who Love can temper thus. 

Good Lord, deliver us ! 40 



FuLKE Greville, Lord Brooke, 
Ccelica, in Certain Learned and 
Elegant Works, 1 633 ; written 1 5 - ? 

SONNETS. 
XVII. 

TO CYNTHIA. 

Cynthia, whose glories are at full forever, 

Whose beauties draw forth tears, and kindle fires. 
Fires, which kindled once are quenched never : 

So beyond hope your worth bears up desires. 
Why cast you clouds on your sweet-looking eyes ? 

Are you afraid, they show me too much pleasure ? 
Strong Nature decks the grave wherein it lies, 

Excellence can never be expressed in measure. 
Are you afraid because my heart adores you, 

The world will think I hold Endymion's place ? k 

Hippolytus, sweet Cynthia, kneeled before you ; 

Yet did you not come down to kiss his face. 
Angels enjoy the Heaven's inward choirs : 
Star-gazers only multiply desires. 



FULKE GREVILLE. 17 

XXII. 

MYRA. 

I, WITH whose colors Myra dressed her head, 
I, that ware posies of her own hand-making, 

I, that mine own name in the chimneys read 
By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking : 

Must I look on, in hope time coming may 5 

With change bring back my turn again to play ? 

I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found 

A garland sweet with true-love knots in flowers, 

Which I to wear about mine arms was bound, 

That each of us might know that all was ours : 10 

Must I lead now an idle life in wishes, 

And follow Cupid for his loaves and fishes ? 

I, that did wear the ring her mother left, 
I, for whose love she gloried to be blamed, 

I, with whose eyes her eyes committed theft, 15 

I, who did make her blush when I was named : 

Must I lose ring, flowers, blush, theft, and go naked, 

Watching with sighs till dead love be awakbd ? 

I, that when drowsy Argus fell asleep, 

Like Jealousy o'erwatchbd with Desire, 20 

Was ever warned modesty to keep 

While her breath speaking kindled Nature's fire : 
Must I look on a-cold while others warm them ? 
Do Vulcan's brothers in such fine nets arm them ? 

Was it for this that I might Myra see 25 

Washing the water with her beauties white ? 

Yet would she never write her love to me : 

Thinks wit of change when thoughts are in delight ? 

Mad girls may safely love, as they may leave : 

No man can print a kiss ; lines may deceive. 30 



18 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

LV. 

TO CYNTHIA. 

Cynthia, because your horns look divers ways, 

Now darkened to the east, now to the west, 
Then at full glory once in thirty days, 

Sense doth believe that change is nature's rest. 
Poor earth, that dare presume to judge the sky : 

Cynthia is ever round, and never varies ; 
Shadows and distance do abuse the eye, 

And in abused sense truth oft miscarries : 
Yet who this language to the people speaks, 
Opinion's empire sense's idol breaks. 

LXXXVII. 
FORSAKE THYSELF, TO HEAVEN TURN THEE. 

The earth, with thunder torn, with fire blasted. 

With waters drowned, with windy palsy shaken, 
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted. 

Since thunder, rain, and winds from earth are taken. 
Man, torn with love, with inward furies blasted. 

Drowned with despair, with fleshly lustings shaken. 
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted : 

Love, fury, lustings out of man are taken. 
Then man, endure thyself, those clouds will vanish. 

Life is a top which whipping Sorrow driveth. 
Wisdom must bear what our flesh cannot banish. 

The humble lead, the stubborn bootless striveth; 
Or, man, forsake thyself, to heaven turn thee, 
Her flames enlighten nature, never burn thee. 



JOHN LYLY. 19 

LXXXVIII. 
A CONTRAST. 

Whenas man's life, the light of human lust, 

In socket of his earthly lanthorn burns, 
That all his glory unto ashes must, 

And generations to corruption turns. 
Then fond desires that only fear their end, 5 

Do vainly wish for life, but to amend. 
But when this life is from the body fled. 

To see itself in that eternal glass, 
Where time doth end, and thoughts accuse the dead. 

Where all to come is one with all that was ; lo 

Then living men ask how he left his breath. 
That while he lived never thought of death. 



John Lyly, Alexander and Cam- 
paspe, 1584; acted 1581. 

APELLES' SONG. 

Cupid and my Campaspe played 

At cards for kisses, — Cupid paid ; 

He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows. 

His mother's doves, and team of sparrows : 

Loses them too ; then down he throws 5 

The coral of his lip, the rose 

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how) ; 

With these the crystal of his brow, 

And then the dimple of his chin : 

All these did my Campaspe win. 10 

At last he set her both his eyes ; 

She won, and Cupid blind did rise. 

O Love, has she done this to thee? 

What shall, alas ! become of me? 



20, ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

George Peele, The Arraign- 
ment of Paris, 1 584 ; acted 
before 1582. 

CUPID'S CURSE. 

(Enone. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 
As fair as any may be ; 
The fairest shepherd on our green, 
A love for any lady. 
Paris. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 5 

As fair as any may be ; 
Thy love is fair for thee alone 
And for no other lady. 
CEn. My love is fair, my love is gay, 

As fresh as bene the flowers in May, 10 

And of my love my roundelay. 
My merry, merry roundelay. 

Concludes with Cupid's curse, — 
They that do change old love for new 

Pray gods they change for worse ! 1 5 

Ambo simul They that do change old love for new 
Pray gods they change for worse ! 

CEn. Fair and fair, and twice so fair. 

As fair as any may be ; 
The fairest shepherd on the green, 20 

A love for any lady. 
Par. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 

As fair as any may be ; 
Thy love is fair for thee alone 

And for no other lady. 25 

(En. My love can pipe, my love can sing. 

My love can many a pretty thing, 
And of his lovely praises ring 
My merry, merry roundelays. 



JOHN LYLW 21 

Amen to Cupid's curse, — 30 

They that do change old love for new 
Pray gods they change for worse ! 
Ainbo simul. They that do change old love for new 
Pray gods they change for worse ! 

COLIN' S PASSION OF LOVE, 

GENTLE Love, Ungentle for thy deed. 

Thou mak'st my heart 
A bloody mark 
With piercing shot to bleed. 

Shoot soft, sweet Love, for fear thou shoot amiss, s 

For fear too keen 

Thy arrows bene. 
And hit the heart where my beloved is. 

Too fair that fortune were, nor never I 

Shall be so blest, 10 

Among the rest. 
That love shall seize on her by sympathy. 

Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot, 
This doth remain 
To ease my pain, 15 

1 take the wound and die at Venus' foot. 



John Lyly, Sappho and Phao, 
1584 ; acted 1582. 

SAPPHO'S SONG. 
O CRUEL Love, on thee I lay 
My curse, which shall strike blind the day ; 
Never may sleep with velvet hand 
Charm thine eyes with sacred wand ; 



22 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Thy jailors shall be hopes and fears ; 5 

Thy prison-mates groans, sighs, and tears ; 
Thy play to wear out weary times, 
Fantastic passions, vows, and rimes ; 
Thy bread be frowns ; thy drink be gall, 
Such as when you Phao call ; 10 

The bed thou liest on be despair. 
Thy sleep fond dreams, thy dreams long care ; 
Hope, like thy fool, at thy bed's head. 
Mock thee, till madness strike thee dead. 
As, Phao, thou dost me with thy proud eyes ; 1 5 

In thee poor Sappho lives, for thee she dies. 

VULCAN'S SONG: 
IN MAKING OP^ THE ARROWS. 

My shag-hair Cyclops, come, let's ply 
Our Lemnian hammers lustily. 

By my wife's sparrows, 

I swear these arrows 

Shall singing fly 5 

Through many a wanton's eye. 

These headed are with golden blisses, 
These silver ones feathered with kisses, 

But this of lead 

Strikes a clown dead, 10 

When in a dance 

He falls in a trance, 
To see his black-brow lass not buss him. 
And then whines out for death t'untruss him. 
So, so : our work being done, let's play : 15 

Holiday ! boys, cry holiday ! 



THOMAS WATSON. 23 

Thomas Watson, The 'EKarofi- 
iradla, or Passionate Ce^itury 
of Love, 1582. 

PASSIONS. 

XXXVII. 

If Jove himself be subject unto Love 

And range the woods to find a mortal prey ; 
If Neptune from the seas himself remove, 

And seek on sands with earthly wights to play : 

Then may I love my peerless choice by right, 5 

Who far excells each other mortal wight. 

If Pluto could by love be drawn from hell, 

To yield himself a silly virgin's thrall ; 
If Phcebus could vouchsafe on earth to dwell, 

To win a rustic maid unto his call : 10 

Then how much more should I adore the sight 
Of her, in whom the heavens themselves delight ? 

If country Pan might follow nymphs in chase, 

And yet through love remain devoid of blame ; 
If Satyrs were excused for seeking grace 15 

To joy the fruits of any mortal dame : 

Then, why should I once doubt to love her still 
On whom ne Gods nor men can gaze their fill ? 

C. 

Resolved to dust entombed here lieth Love, 

Through fault of her, who here herself should lie ; 
He struck her breast, but all in vain did prove 
To fire the ice : and doubting by and by 

His brand had lost his force, he gan to try S 

Upon himself ; which trial made him die. 



24 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

In sooth no force : let those lament who lust 



I'll sing a carol song for obsequy ; 
For, towards me his dealings were unjust, 

And cause of all my passed misery: lo 

The Fates, I think, seeing what I had passed 
In my behalf wrought this revenge at last. 

But somewhat more to pacify my mind. 

By illing him, through whom I lived a slave, 
I'll cast his ashes to the open wind, 15 

Or write this epitaph upon his grave : 

Here lieth Love, of Mars the bastard son, 
Whose foolish fault to death himself hath done. 



From Clement Robinson's A 
Handful of Pleasant Delights, 
1584. 

A PROPER SONG. 

Fain would I have a pretty thing 

To give unto my Lady : 
I name 710 thing, nor I mean no thing, 

But as pretty a thing as may be. 

Twenty journeys would I make, 5 

And twenty ways would hie me. 
To make adventure for her sake. 

To set some matter by me : 

But I would fain have a pretty thing, etc. 

Some do long for pretty knacks, 10 

And some for strange devices : 
God send me that my lady lacks, 

I care not what the price is. 
Thus fain, etc. 



CLEMENT ROBINSON. 25 

Some go here, and some go there, 15 

Where gazes be not geason ; 
And I go gaping everywhere, 

But still come out of season. 
Yet fain, etc. 

I walk the town and thread the street, 20 

In every corner seeking : 
The pretty thing I cannot meet. 

That's for my lady's liking. 
Fain would, etc. 

The mercers pull me, going by, 25 

The silk-wives say, "What lack ye?" 

"The thing you have not," then say I, 
" Ye foolish fools, go pack ye ! " 
But fain, etc. 

It is not all the silk in Cheap, 30 

Nor all the golden treasure. 
Nor twenty bushels on a heap 

Can do my lady pleasure. 
But fain, etc. 

The gravers of the golden shows 35 

With jewels do beset me ; 
The sempsters in the shops that sews. 

They do no thing but let me. 
But fain, etc. 

But were it in the wit of man 40 

By any means to make it, 
I could for money buy it than. 

And say " Fair Lady, take it." 
Thus fain, etc. 



26 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Lady what a luck is this, 45 
That my good willing misseth 

To find what pretty thing it is 

That my good lady wisheth. 
Thus fain would I have had this pretty thing 

To give unto my lady : 50 

1 said no harm, nor I meant no harm. 

But as pretty a thing as may be. 



Robert Greene, Arbasio, the 
Anatomy of Fortune, 1 584. 

DORALICIA'S DITTY, 

In time we see that silver drops 

The craggy stones make soft ; 
The slowest snail in time we see 

Doth creep and climb aloft. 

With feeble puffs the tallest pine 5 

In tract of time doth fall ; 
The hardest heart in time doth yield 

To Venus' luring call. 

Where chilling frost alate did nip, 

There flasheth now a fire ; ic 

Where deep disdain bred noisome hate, 

There kindleth now desire. 

Time causeth hope to have his hap ; 

What care in time not eased? 
In time I loathed that now I love, 15 

In both content and pleased. 



CHIDICK TYCHBORNE. 27 

Chidick Tychborne, in F<?rj<?j 
of Praise and Joy . . . writteii 
upon her Majesty^ s Preserva- 
tion, 1586. 

LAMENT. 

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares, 

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, 
My crop of corn is but a field of tares, 

And all my good is but vain hope of gain : 
My life is fled and yet I saw no sun, 5 

And now I live, and now my life is done. 

The spring is past and yet it hath not sprung, 
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green, 

My youth is gone and yet I am but young, 

I saw the world and yet I was not seen : 10 

My thread is cut and yet it is not spun, 

And now I live, and now my life is done. 

I sought my death, and found it in my womb, 
I looked for life, and saw it was a shade, 

I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb, 15 

And now I die, and now I am but made : 

The glass is full and now my glass is run. 

And now I live, and now my life is done. 



Nicholas Breton, from Cosens' 
MS., after 1 586. 

OLDEN L O VE-MA KING. 

In time of yore when shepherds dwelt 

Upon the mountain rocks, 
And simple people never felt 

The pain of lover's mocks ; 



28 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But little birds would carry tales 5 

'Twixt Susan and her sweeting, 
And all the dainty nightingales 

Did sing at lovers' meeting : 
Then might you see what looks did pass 

Where shepherds did assemble, lo 

And where the life of true love was 

When hearts could not dissemble. 

Then yea and nay was thought an oath 

That was not to be doubted, 
And when it came to faith and troth 1 5 

We were not to be flouted. 
Then did they talk of curds and cream, 

Of butter, cheese and milk. 
There was no speech of sunny beam 

Nor of the golden silk. 20 

Then for a gift a row of pins, 

A purse, a pair of knives. 
Was all the way that love begins ; 

And so the shepherd wives. 

But now we have so much ado, ' 25 

And are so sore aggrieved, 
That when we go about to woo 

We cannot be believed ; 
Such choice of jewels, rings and chains, 

That may but favor move, 3° 

And such intolerable pains 

Ere one can hit on love ; 
That if I still shall bide this life 

'Twixt love and deadly hate, 
I will go learn the country life 35 

Or leave the lover's state. 



THOMAS LODGE. 29 



Thomas Lodge, Rosalind, Eu- 
p hues' Golden Legacy, 1 590 ; 
written 1587. 

ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL, 

Love in my bosom like a bee, 

Doth suck his sweet, 
Now with his wings he plays with me, 
Now with his feet. 
Within mine eyes he makes his nest, 5 

His bed amidst my tender breast, 
My kisses are his daily feast ; 
And yet he robs me of my rest : 
Ah wanton, will ye ? 

And if I sleep, then percheth he 10 

With pretty flight. 
And makes his pillow of my knee 
The livelong night. 
Strike I my lute, he tunes the string, 
He music plays if so I sing, 15 

He lends me every lovely thing ; 
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting : 
Whist, wanton, still ye ! 

Else I with roses every day 

Will whip you hence, 20 

And bind you, when you long to play. 
For your offence ; 
I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in, 
I'll make you fast it for your sin, 
I'll count your power not worth a pin : 25 

Alas, what hereby shall I win. 
If he gainsay me ? 



30 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

What if I beat the wanton boy 
With many a rod ? 
He will repay me with annoy, 30 

Because a god. 
Then sit thou safely on my knee. 
And let thy bower my bosom be, 
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee ; 
O Cupid, so thou pity me, 35 

Spare not, but play thee. 



ROSALIND'S DESCRIPTION. 

Like to the clear in highest sphere 

Where all imperial glory shines, 
Of selfsame color is her hair 

Whether unfolded or in twines : 

Heigh ho, fair Rosaline ! 5 

Her eyes are sapphires set in snow. 

Refining heaven by every wink ; 
The gods do fear whenas they glow. 

And I do tremble when I think. 

Heigh ho, would she were mine ! 10 

Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud 

That beautifies Aurora's face. 
Or like the silver crimson shroud 

That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace ; 

Heigh ho, fair Rosaline ! 15 

Her lips are like two budded roses 

Whom ranks of lilies neighbor nigh, 
Within which bounds she balm incloses 

Apt to entice a deity: 

Heigh ho, would she were mine ! 20 



TSOMAE l.DJ>G^ 



51 



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32 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

* Whoso by foolish love are stung, 
Are worthily oppressed. 5 

And so sing I, with a down, a down «.' 

When Love was first begot 

And by the mover's will 
Did fall to human lot 

His solace to fulfil, lo 

Devoid of all deceit, 

A chaste and holy fire 
Did quicken man's conceit. 

And woman's breast inspire. 
The gods that saw the good ^5 

That mortals did approve, 
With kind and holy mood, 

Began to talk of Love. 

* Down a down ! ' 

Thus Phyllis sung, 20 

By fancy once distressed : 
' Whoso by foolish love are stung, 
Are worthily oppressed. 
And so sing I, with a down, a down a.' 

But during this accord, 25 

A wonder strange to hear ; 
Whilst Love in deed and word 

Most faithful did appear. 
False Semblance came in place, 

By Jealousy attended, 3° 

And with a double face 

Both Love and Fancy blended. 
Which makes the gods forsake. 

And men from fancy fly. 
And maidens scorn a make, 35 

Forsooth and so will L 



EDWARD VERE. 33 

Down a down ! ' 
Thus Phyllis sung 

By fancy once distressed : 
* Whoso by foolish love are stung, 4° 

Are worthily oppressed. 
And so sing I, with down, a down, a down a.' 



Edward Vere, Earl of Ox- 
ford, in William Byrd's 
Psalms, SonnetSy and Songs 
of Sadness and Piety. 1 588. 

IF WOMEN COULD BE FAIR AND YET 
NOT FOND. 

If women could be fair and yet not fond. 
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, 

I would not marvel that they make men bond 
By service long to purchase their good will ; 

But when I see how frail those creatures are, 

I laugh that men forget themselves so far. 

To mark the choice they make, and how they change, 
How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pan ; 

Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range, 
These gentle birds that fly from man to man ; 

Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist. 

And let them fly, fair fools, which way they list ? 

Yet for our sport we fawn and flatter both. 

To pass the time when nothing else can please, 

And train them to our lure with subtle oath. 
Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease ; 

And then we say when we their fancy try. 

To play with fools, O what a fool was I ! 



34 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

Robert Greene, Peritnedes the 
Blacksmith. 1 588. 

FAIR IS MY LOVE FOR APRIL IN 
HER FACE. 

Fair is my love for April in her face, 

Her lovely breasts September claims his part, 

And lordly July in her eyes takes place, 
But cold December dwelleth in her heart ; 

Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire, 

Accurst that month that hindereth my desire. 

Like Phoebus' fire, so sparkle both her eyes. 
As air perfumed with amber is her breath. 

Like swelling waves, her lovely [breasts] do rise. 
As earth her heart, cold, dateth me to death : 

Aye me, poor man, that on the earth do live. 

When unkind earth death and despair doth give. 

In pomp sits mercy seated in her face. 

Love 'twixt her breasts his trophies doth imprint. 

Her eyes shine favor, courtesy and grace, 

But touch her heart, ah that is framed of flint ! 

Therefore my harvest in the grass bears grain ; 

The rock will wear, washed with a winter's rain. 



Robert Greene, Pandosto, the 
Triumph of Time, before 1588 (?). 

AH, WERE SHE PITIFUL AS SHE IS FAIR. 

Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair, 

Or but as mild as she is seeming so. 
Then were my hopes greater than my despair. 

Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe. 



ROBERT GREENE. 35 

Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand, 5 

That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, 
Then knew I v/here to seat me in a land, 

Under wide heavens, but yet [there is] not such. 
So as she shows, she seems the budding rose. 

Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower, lo 

Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows, 

Compassed she is with thorns and cankered bower, 
Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn. 
She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn. 

Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, 15 

For none must be compared to her note ; 
Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill, 

Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat. 
Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed. 

She comforts all the world, as doth the sun, 20 

And at her sight the night's foul vapor's fled ; 

When she is set, the gladsome day is done. 
O glorious sun, imagine me the west. 
Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast ! 



Robert Greene, Menaphon, 1589. 

MENAPHON'S SONG. 

Some say Love, 
Foolish Love, 

Doth rule and govern all the gods : 
I say Love, 
Inconstant Love, 

Sets men's senses far at odds. 
Some swear Love, 
Smooth-faced Love, 



36 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Is sweetest sweet that men can have : 
I say Love, lo 

Sower Love, 

Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave. 
A bitter sweet, a folly worst of all. 
That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall. 

Love is sweet. 15 

Wherein sweet } 

In fading pleasures that do pain. 
Beauty sweet : 
Is that sweet 

That yieldeth sorrow for a gain ? 20 

If Love's sweet, 
Herein sweet. 

That minute's joys are monthly woes : 
*Tis not sweet, 
That is sweet 25 

Nowhere but where repentance grows. 
Then love who list, if beauty be so sower ; 
Labor for me. Love rest in prince's bower. 



SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD. 

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee. 
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 

Mother's wag, pretty boy. 

Father's sorrow, father's joy ; 

When thy father first did see 5 

Such a boy by him and me. 

He was glad, I was woe, 

Fortune changed made him so. 

When he left his pretty boy, 

Last his sorrow, first his joy. 10 



ROBERT GREENE. 37 

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, 
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 

Streaming tears that never stint, 

Like pearl drops from a flint, 

Fell by course from his eyes, 15 

That one another's place supplies ; 

Thus he grieved in every part. 

Tears of blood fell from his heart. 

When he left his pretty boy. 

Father's sorrow, father's joy. 20 

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee. 
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 

The wanton smiled, father wept. 

Mother cried, baby leapt ; 

More he crowed, more we cried, 25 

Nature could not sorrow hide : 

He must go, he must kiss 

Child and mother, baby bliss. 

For he left his pretty boy. 

Father's sorrow, father's joy. 3° 

Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee. 
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 



BORON'S DESCRIPTION OF SAMELA. 

Like to Diana in her summer weed. 

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye. 

Goes fair Samela ; 

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed. 

When washed by Arethusa Fount they lie, 

Is fair Samela ; 



38 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

As fair Aurora in her morning-grey, 

Decked with the ruddy glister of her love, 
Is fair Samela ; 
Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, lo 

Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move, 
Shines fair Samela ; 

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams. 
Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory 

Of fair Samela ; 15 

Her cheeks like rose and lily yield forth gleams. 
Her brow's bright arches framed of ebony ; 
Thus fair Samela 

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue. 

And Juno in the show of majesty, 20 

For she is Samela ; 
Pallas in Mat, all three, if you will view, 
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity 
Yield to Samela. 

BORON'S JIG. 

Through the shrubs as I can crack 
For my lambs, little ones, 
' Mongst many pretty ones, — 
Nymphs I mean, whose hair was black 

As the crow: 5 

Like the snow 
Her face and browes shined I ween ! — 
I saw a little one, 
A bonny pretty one. 
As bright, buxom, and as sheen 10 

As was she 
On her knee 



WILLIAM BYRD. 39 

That lulled the god, whose arrow warms 
Such merry little ones, 

Such fair-faced pretty ones 15 

As dally in love's chiefest harms ; 
Such was mine, 
Whose grey eyne 
Made me love. I gan to woo 

This sweet little one, 20 

This bonny pretty one. 
I wooed hard a day or two, 
Till she bade 
' Be not sad. 
Woo no more, I am thine own, 25 

Thy dearest little one, 
Thy truest pretty one.' 
Thus was faith and firm love shown. 
As behoves 
Shepherds' loves. 3° 



From William Byrd's Songs 
of Sundry N'atures, 1 589, au- 
thor unknown. 

PHILON, THE SHEPHERD, HIS SONG. 

While that the sun with his beams hot 
Scorched the fruits in vale and mountain, 

Philon, the shepherd, late forgot. 
Sitting beside a crystal fountain 

In shadow of a green oak tree, 

Upon his pipe this song played he : 
Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love, 
Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love ; 
Your mind is light, soon lost for new love. 



40 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

So long as I was in your sight, lo 

I was your heart, your soul, your treasure ; 

And evermore you sobbed and sighed, 
Burning in flames beyond all measure : 

Three days endured your love for me. 

And it was lost in other three. ^5 

Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love, 
Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love ; 
Your mind is light, soon lost for new love. 

Another shepherd you did see, 

To whom your heart was soon enchained ; 20 

Full soon your love was leapt from me. 

Full soon my place he had obtained : 
Soon came a third, your love to win ; 
And we were out and he was in. 

Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love, 25 

Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love ; 

Your mind is light, soon lost for new love. 

Sure you have made me passing glad 
That you your mind so soon removed, 

Before that I the leisure had 3° 

To choose you for my best beloved : 

For all your love was past and done 

Two days before it was begun. 

Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love, 

Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu Love ; 35 

Your mind is light, soon lost for new love. 



JOHN LYLY. 41 

John Lyly. Midas, 1592 ; acted 
1590. 

A SONG OF DAPHNE TO THE LUTE. 

My Daphne's hair is twisted gold, 

Bright stars a-piece her eyes do hold, 

My Daphne's brow enthrones the graces, 

My Daphne's beauty stains all faces ; 

On Daphne's cheeks grow rose and cherry, 5 

On Daphne's lip a sweeter berry, 

Daphne's snowy hand but touched does melt, 

And then no heavenlier warmth is felt ; 

My Daphne's voice tunes all the spheres, 

My Daphne's music charms all ears. 10 

Fond am I thus to sing her praise, 

These glories now are turned to bays. 

HYMN TO APOLLO. 

Sing to Apollo, god of day, 

Whose golden beams with morning play, 

And make her eyes as brightly shine, 

Aurora's face is called divine ; 

Sing to Phoebus and that throne 5 

Of diamonds which he sits upon. 

lo paeans let us sing 

To physic's and to poesy's king ! 

Crown all his altars with bright fire. 

Laurels bind about his lyre, 10 

A Daphnean coronet for his head, 

The Muses dance about his bed ; 

When on his ravishing lute he plays. 

Strew his temple round with bays. 

lo paeans let us sing 15 

To the glittering Delian king ! 



42 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



John Lyly, Mother Bombie, 
1 594 ; acted about 1 590. 

HYMN TO CUPID. 

O Cupid ! monarch over kings, 

Wherefore hast thou feet and wings ? 

It is to shew how swift thou art, 

When thou wound'st a tender heart ; 

Thy wings being clipped and feet held still, 

Thy bow so many could not kill. 

It is all one in Venus' wanton school, 
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool ; 
Fools in love's college 
Have far more knowledge 
To read a woman over, 
Than a neat prating lover : 
Nay, 'tis confessed. 
That fools please women best. 



George Peele, Polyhymnia, 
1590. 

FAREWELL TO ARMS. 

His golden locks time hath to silver turned ; 

O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing ! 
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, 

But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by increasing : 
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen, 
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 43 

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, 
And, lovers' sonnets turned to holy psalms, 

A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, 

And feed on prayers, which are age his alms ; lo 

But though from court to cottage he depart, 

His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. 

And when he saddest sits in homely cell, 

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song — 

' Bless'd be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, 15 

Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' 

Goddess, allow this aged man his right, 

To be your beadsman now that was your knight. 



William Shakespeare, Love's 
Labour's Lost, acted 1 590. 

WINTER. 

When icicles hang by the wall 

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 

And milk comes frozen home in pail ; 
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
Tuwhit, tuwhoo, 
A merry note, 
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all around the wind doth blow. 
And coughing drowns the parson's saw. 

And birds sit brooding in the snow, 
And Marian's nose looks red and raw ; 



44 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, 

Then nightly sings the staring owl, 15 

Tuwhit, tuwhoo, 

A merry note, 
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 



Thomas Dekker, The Pleasant 
Comedy of Old Eortunatus, 
acted 1590 (?). 

HYMN TO FORTUNE. 

Fortune smiles, cry holiday ! 

Dimples on her cheeks do dwell. 
Fortune frowns, cry well-a-day ! 

Her love is heaven, her hate is hell. 
Since heaven and hell obey her power, s 

Tremble when her eyes do lower : 

Since heaven and hell her power obey. 
When she smiles cry holiday ! 
Holiday with joy we cry, 

And bend, and bend, and merrily 10 

Sing hymns to Fortune's deity, 
Sing hymns to Fortune's deity. 

Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily ! 

With our song let heaven resound, 

Fortune's hands our heads have crowned : 15 
Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily ! 

SONG. 

Virtue's branches wither, Virtue pines, 

O pity, pity, and alack the time ; 
Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines. 

Her gilded boughs above the cedar climb. 



ROBERT GREENE. 45 

Vice hath golden cheeks, O pity, pity, 5 

She in every land doth monarchize ; 
Virtue is exiled from every city. 

Virtue is a fool, Vice only wise. 

O pity, pity. Virtue weeping dies. 

Vice laughs to see her faint, alack the time. lo 

This sinks, with painted wings the other flies : 

Alack that best should fall, and bad should climb. 

O pity, pity, pity, mourn, not sing. 

Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines, 

Vice is a saint. Virtue an underling ; 15 

Virtue's branches wither, Virtue pines. 



Robert Greene, The Mourn- 
ing Garment, 1590. 

THE SHEPHERD'S WIFE'S SONG. 

Ah, what is love 1 It is a pretty thing, 
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king ; 

And sweeter too : 
For kings have cares that wait upon a crown. 
And cares can make the sweetest love to frown. 

Ah then, ah then. 
If country loves such sweet desires do gain. 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

His flocks are folded, he comes home at night, 
As merry as a king in his delight. 

And merrier too : 
For kings bethink them what the state require, 
Where shepherds careless carol by the fire. 

Ah then, ah then. 
If country loves such sweet desires do gain. 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain } 



46 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat 

His cream and curds as doth the king his meat ; 

And blither too : 
For kings have often fears when they do sup, 20 

Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup. 

Ah then, ah then, 
If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

To bed he goes, as wanton then, I ween, 25 

As is a king in dalliance with a queen ; 

More wanton too : 
For kings have many griefs affects to move, 
Where shepherds have no greater grief than love. 

Ah then, ah then, 3° 

If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound. 
As doth the king upon his beds of down ; 

More sounder too : 35 

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill. 
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill. 

Ah then, ah then. 
If country loves such sweet desires do gain. 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 40 

Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe 
As doth the king at every tide or sithe ; 

And blither too : 
For kings have wars and broils to take in hand. 
When shepherds laugh and love upon the land. 45 

Ah then, ah then. 
If country loves such sweet desires do gain. 
What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 



NICHOLAS BRETON, 47 



Robert Greene, Farewell to 
Folly, 1 591. 

CONTENT. 

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content, 

The quiet mind is richer than a crown, 
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent, 

The poor estate scorns Fortune's angry frown : 
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, 5 
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. 

The homely house that harbors quiet rest. 
The cottage that affords no pride nor care, 

The mean that grees with country music best. 

The sweet consort of mirth and modest fare, 10 

Obscured life sets down a type of bliss : 

A mind content both crown and kingdom is. 



Nicholas Breton, in The Hon- 
orable Entertainment given to 
the Queen'' s Majesty, 1591. 

PHYLLIDA AND CORYDON, 

In the merry month of May, 

In a morn by break of day. 

With a troop of damsels playing 

Forth the wood, forsooth a Maying: 

When anon by the wood side 

There I spied all alone, 

Phyllida and Corydon. 

Much ado there was, God wot ! 

He would love and she would not. 



48 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

She said, never man was true ; lo 

He said, none was false to you. 

He said, he had loved her long ; 

She said. Love should have no wrong. 

Corydon would kiss her then ; 

She said, maids must k'iss no men, 15 

Till they did for good and all ; 

Then she made the shepherd call 

All the heavens to witness truth 

Never loved a truer youth. 

Thus with many a pretty oath, 20 

Yea and nay, and faith and troth. 

Such as silly shepherds use 

When they will not love abuse, 

Love, which had been long deluded. 

Was with kisses sweet concluded ; 25 

And Phyllida, with garlands gay, 

Was made the lady of the May. 



Samuel Daniel, Sonnets after 
Astrophel, 1591. 

SONNET XL 

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore, 

Yield Cytherea's son those arcs of love. 

Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore, 

And to the orient do thy pearls remove, 

Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white. 

To Arabian odors give thy breathing sweet, 

Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright. 

To Thetis give the honor of thy feet ; 

Let Venus have thy graces her resigned, 

And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres ; 



SAMUEL DANIEL. 49 



But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind 
To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears ; 
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again : 
So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain. 



Samuel Daniel, Delia, Con- 
taining Certain Sonnets, 1592. 

SONNETS. 

XXXI. 

Look, Delia, how we esteem the half-blown rose, 
The image of thy blush and summer's honor, 
Whilst in her tender green she doth inclose 
That pure, sweet beauty Time bestows upon her. 
No sooner spreads her glory to the air. 
But straight her full-blown pride is in declining ; 
She then is scorned that late adorned the fair : 
So clouds thy beauty, after fairest shining. 
No April can revive thy withered flowers. 
Whose blooming grace adorns thy glory now ; 
Swift, speedy Time, feathered with flying hours, 
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. 
O let not then such riches waste in vain. 
But love, whilst that thou may'st be loved again. 

XLIL 

Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew, 
Whose short refresh upon the tender green 
Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew. 
And straight 'tis gone as it had never been. 
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish, 
Short is the glory of the blushing rose. 



50 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, 
Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose. 
When thou surcharged with burthen of thy years, 
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth, 
And that in beauty's lease expired appears 
The date of age, the Kalends of our death. 
But ah ! no more, this must not be foretold, 
For women grieve to think they must be old. 

XLV. 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, 
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born : 
Relieve my languish and restore the light ; 
With dark forgetting of my care, return, 
And let the day be time enough to mourn 
The shipwrack of my ill-adventred youth : 
Let waking eyes sufifice to wail their scorn 
Without the torment of the night's untruth. 
Cease dreams, the images of day desires, 
To model forth the passions of the morrow ; 
Never let rising sun approv^e you liars. 
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. 
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain. 
And never wake to feel the day's disdain. 

FroTH the same. 
AN ODE. 

Now each creature joys the other, 
Passing happy days and hours, 

One bird reports unto another 
In the fall of silver showers, 

Whilst the earth, our common mother. 
Hath her bosom decked with flowers. 



THOMAS NASHE. 51 

Whilst the greatest torch of heaven 

With bright rays warms Flora's lap, 
Making nights and days both even, 

Cheering plants with fresher sap : lo 

My field of flowers quite bereaven. 

Wants refresh of better hap. 

Echo, daughter of the air, 

Babbling guest of rocks and hills, 
Knows the name of my fierce fair, 15 

And sounds the accents of my ills. 
Each thing pities my despair. 

Whilst that she her lover kills. 

Whilst that she, O cruel maid. 

Doth me and my true love despise ; 20 

My life's flourish is decayed. 

That depended on her eyes : 
But her will must be obeyed, 

And well he ends for love who dies. 



Thomas Nashe, Summer's Last 
Will and Testafnent, 1600 ; 
acted 1592. 

FADING SUMMER. 

Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore. 
So fair a summer look for nevermore : 

All good things vanish less than in a day. 
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. 

Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year. 
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear. 



52 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

What, shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst, 
Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed ? 

O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source. 
Streams, turn to tears your tributary course. 
Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, 
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear. 

SPRING. 

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king ; 
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, 
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, 
Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! 

The palm and May make country houses gay, 
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, 
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay. 

Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! 

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, 
Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit 
In every street, these tunes our ears do greet, 
Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo ! 
Spring, the sweet spring ! 

DEATH'S SUMMONS. 

Adieu, farewell earth's bliss, 
This world uncertain is : 
Fond are life's lustful joys, 
Death proves them all but toys. 
None from his darts can fly : 
I am sick, I must die. 

Lord have mercy on us ! 

Rich men, trust not in wealth. 
Gold cannot buy you health ; 



THOMAS NASHE. 53 

Physic himself must fade, lo 

All things to end are made ; 
The plague full swift goes by : 
I am sick, I must die. 

Lord have mercy on us ! 

Beauty is but a flower, 15 

Which wrinkles will devour ; 
Brightness falls from the air, 
Queens have died young and fair. 
Dust hath closed Helen's eye : 
I am sick, I must die. 20 

Lord have mercy on us ! 

Strength stoops unto the grave, 

Worms feed on Hector brave, 

Swords may not fight with fate, 

Earth still holds ope her gate. 25 

Come, come, the bells do cry, 

I am sick, I must die. 

Lord have mercy on us ! 

Wit with his wantonness, 

Tasteth death's bitterness ; 3° 

Hell's executioner 

Hath no ears for to hear 

What vain art can reply. 

I am sick, I must die. 

Lord have mercy on us ! 35 

Haste therefore each degree 

To welcome destiny ; 

Heaven is our heritage 

Earth but a player's stage, 

Mount we unto the sky: 40 

I am sick, I must die. 

Lord have mercy on us ! 



54 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Robert Greene, Philomela, 
The Lady Fitzwater^s Night- 
ingale, 1592. 

PHILOMELA'S ODE THAT SHE SUNG 
IN HER ARBOR. 

Sitting by a river side, 

Where a silent stream did glide, 

Muse I did of many things, 

That the mind in quiet brings. 

I gan think how some men deem 5 

Gold their god ; and some esteem 

Honor is the chief content 

That to man in life is lent. 

And some others do contend, 

Quiet none like to a friend. 10 

Others hold there is no wealth 

Compared to a perfit health. 

Some man's mind in quiet stands, 

When he is lord of many lands ; 

But I did sigh, and said all this 15 

Was but a shade of perfit bliss ; 

And in my thoughts I did approve 

Naught so sweet as is true love. 

Love 'twixt lovers passeth these. 

When mouth kisseth and heart grees, 20 

With folded arms and lips meeting, 

Each soul another sweetly greeting ; 

For by the breath the soul fleeteth, 

And soul with soul in kissing meeteth. 

If love be so sweet a thing, 25 

That such happy bliss doth bring, 



THOMAS LODGE. 55 

Happy is love's sugared thrall ; 

But unhappy maidens all, 

Who esteem your virgins' blisses 

Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses. 30 

No such quiet to the mind, 

As true love with kisses kind. 

But if a kiss prove unchaste, 

Then is true love quite disgraced. 

Though love be sweet, learn this of me : 35 

No sweet love but honesty. 



Thomas Lodge, A Margarite 
of America, 1 596 ; written 
1592- 

THE SOLITARY SHEPHERD'S SONG. 

O SHADY vales, O fair enriched meads, 

O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising mountains ; 

O painted flowers, green herbs, where Flora treads, 

Refreshed by wanton winds and wat'ry fountains. 

O all you winged choiristers of wood, 

That perched aloft your former pains report, 

And straight again recount with pleasant mood 

Your present joys in sweet and seemly sort. 

O all you creatures, whosoever thrive 

On mother earth, in seas, by air, or fire. 

More blest are you than I here under sun : 

Love dies in me, whenas he doth revive 

In you ; I perish under beauty's ire, 

Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is won. 



56 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



William Shakespeare, The 
Two Gentleme7i of Vero)ia, 
1 598 ; acted about 1 592-93. 

SILVIA. 

Who is Silvia? what is she, 

That all our swains commend her ? 
Holy, fair and wise is she ; 

The heaven such grace did lend her. 
That she might admired be. 5 

Is she kind as she is fair, 

For beauty lives with kindness ? 
Love doth to her eyes repair, 

To help him of his blindness, 
And being helped inhabits there. 10 

Then to Silvia let us sing, 

That Silvia is excelling ; 
She excels each mortal thing 

Upon the dull earth dwelling : 
To her let us garlands bring. '5 



Barnabe Barnes, Parthejwphil 
and Parthenope, 1 593. 

SONNET LXVI. 

Ah, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? 
Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains. 
Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad, 
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains ? 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 57 

Ah, sweet Content, where dost thou safely rest ? 5 

In heaven with angels which the praises sing 

Of him that made and rules at his behest 

The minds and hearts of every living thing ? 

Ah, sweet Content, where doth thine harbor hold ? 

Is it in churches with religious men 10 

Which please the gods with prayers manifold. 

And in their studies meditate it then ? 

Whether thou dost in heaven, or earth appear, 

Be where thou wilt, thou wilt not harbor here ! 



Christopher Marlowe, in 
The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599; 
written before 1593. 

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. 

Come live with me, and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove, 
That valleys, groves, hills and fields. 
Woods or steepy mountains yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks 
By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses. 
And a thousand fragrant posies, 
A cap of flowers and a kirtle 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle ; 

A gown made of the finest wool 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; 



58 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Fair-lined slippers for the cold, 15 

With buckles of the purest gold ; 

A belt of straw and ivy-buds, 

With coral clasps and amber studs : 

An if these pictures may thee move. 

Come live with me and be my love. 20 

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning : 
If these delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me and be my love. 



Thomas Lodge, Phyllis honored 
with Pastoral Sonnets^ 1 593. 

SONNETS. 

XIIL 

LOVE'S WANTONNESS. 

Love gilds the roses of thy lips 

And flies about them like a bee ; 
If I approach he forward skips, 

And if I kiss he stingeth me. 

Love in thine eyes doth build his bower, 
And sleeps within their pretty shine ; 

And if I look the boy will lower, 

And from their orbs shoot shafts divine. 

Love works thy heart within his fire, 
And in my tears doth firm the same ; 

And if I tempt it will retire. 

And of my plaints doth make a game. 



THOMAS LODGE. 59 

Love, let me cull her choicest flowers, 

And pity me, and calm her eye, 
Make soft her heart, dissolve her lowers, 15 

Then will I praise thy deity. 

But if thou do not, Love, I'll truly serve her 
In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her. 



XV. 

TO PHYLLIS, TliE FAIR SHEPHERDESS. 

My Phyllis hath the morning sun, 

At first to look upon her ; 
And Phyllis hath morn-waking birds^ 

Her risings for to honor. 
My Phyllis hath prime-feathered flowers 5 

That smile when she treads on them ; 
And Phyllis hath a gallant flock 

That leaps since she doth own them. 
But Phyllis hath so hard a heart, 

Alas that she should have it, 10 

As yields no mercy to desart. 

Nor grace to those that crave it. 
Sweet sun, when thou look'st on. 
Pray her regard my moan ; 

Sweet birds, when you sing to her, 15 

To yield some pity, woo her ; 
Sweet flowers whenas she treads on, 
Tell her, her beauty deads one. 
And if in life her love she nill agree me. 
Pray her before I die she will come see me. 20 



60 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Thomas Lodge, in The Phoe- 
nix' Nest, 1593. 

ACCURST BE LOVE. 

Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
He tastes the fruit whilst others toil, 
He brings the lamp, we lend the oil, 
He sows distress, we yield him soil. 
He wageth war, we bide the foil. 5 

Accurst be Love, and those that^ trust his trains ! 
He lays the trap, we seek the snare. 
He threat'neth death, we speak him fair, 
He coins deceits, we foster care. 
He favoreth pride, we count it rare. 10 

Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 

He seemeth blind, yet wounds with art. 

He sows content, he pays with smart. 

He swears relief, yet kills the heart. 

He calls for truth, yet scorns desart. 15 

Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
Whose heaven is hell, whose perfect joys are pains. 



FOR PITY, PRETTY EYES, SURCEASE. 

For pity, pretty eyes, surcease 

To give me war, and grant me peace. 

Triumphant eyes, why bear you arms 

Against a heart that thinks no harms ? 

A heart already quite appalled, 

A heart that yields and is enthralled ? 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 61 

Kill rebels, proudly that resist ; 

Not those that in true faith persist, 

And conquered serve your deity. 

Will you, alas ! command me die ? lo 

Then die I yours, and death my cross ; 

But unto you pertains the loss. 



Sir Walter Raleigh (?) in 
the same. 

NOW WHAT IS LOVE. 

Now what is love, I pray thee, tell "i 
It is that fountain and that well 
Where pleasure and repentance dwell ; 
It is perhaps the sauncing bell 
That tolls all into heaven or hell : 5 

And this is love, as I hear tell. 

Yet what is love, I prithee, say ? 
It is a work on holiday. 
It is December matched with May, 
When lusty bloods in fresh array lo 

Hear ten months after of the play : 
And this is love, as I hear say. 

Yet what is love, good shepherd sain? 
It is a sunshine mixed with rain, 
It is a toothache or like pain, 15 

It is a game where none hath gain ; 
The lass saith no, yet would full fain : 
And this is love, as I hear sain. 



62 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Yet, shepherd, what is love, I pray? 

It is a yes, it is a nay, 20 

A pretty kind of sporting fray, 

It is a thing will soon away. 

Then, nymphs, take vantage while ye may : 

And this is love, as I hear say. 

Yet what is love, good shepherd, show t 25 

A thing that creeps, it cannot go, 
A prize that passeth to and fro, 
A thing for one, a thing for moe. 
And he that proves shall find it so : 
And, shepherd, this is love, I trow. 30 



Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, 
1595; written 1592-94. 

SONNETS. 

XXXVII. 

What guile is this, that those her golden tresses 

She doth attire under a net of gold ; 

And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses. 

That which is gold or hair may scarce be told ? 

Is it that men's frail eyes, which gaze too bold, 

She may entangle in that golden snare ; 

And, being caught, may craftily enfold 

Their weaker hearts, which are not well aware ? 

Take heed, therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare 

Henceforth too rashly on that guileful net. 

In which, if ever ye entrapped are. 

Out of her bands ye by no means shall get. 

Fondness it were for any, being free. 

To covet fetters, though they golden be. 



EDMUND SPENSER. 63 



LV. 



So oft as I her beauty do behold, 

And therewith do her cruelty compare, 

I marvel of what substance was the mould. 

The which her made at once so cruel fair. 

Not earth, for her high thoughts more heavenly are ; 

Not water, for her love doth burn like fire ; 

Not air, for she is not so light or rare ; 

Not fire, for she doth freeze with faint desire. 

Then needs another element inquire 

Whereof she mote be made — that is, the sky, 

For to the heaven her haughty looks aspire, 

And eke her mind is pure immortal high. 

Then, sith to heaven ye likened are the best, 

Be like in mercy as in all the rest. 



LXV. 

The doubt which ye misdeem, fair love, is vain, 

That fondly fear to lose your liberty ; 

When, losing one, two liberties ye gain. 

And make him bond that bondage erst did fly. 

Sweet be the bands, the which true love doth tie, 

Without constraint, or dread of any ill : 

The gentle bird feels no captivity 

Within her cage, but sings, and feeds her fill. 

There pride dare not approach, nor discord spill 

The league 'twixt them that loyal love hath bound. 

But simple truth, and mutual good will. 

Seeks with sweet peace to salve each other's wound: 

There Faith doth fearless dwell in brazen tower, 

And spotless Pleasure builds her sacred bower. 



64 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

LXXXI. 

Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs 
With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark ; 
Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears ; 
Or in her eyes the fire of love does spark. 
Fair, when her breast, like a rich-laden bark, 
With precious merchandise she forth doth lay ; 
Fair, when that cloud of pride, which oft doth dark 
Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away. 
But fairest she, when so she doth display 
The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight ; 
Through which her words so wise do make their way 
To bear the message of her gentle sprite. 
The rest be works of nature's wonderment : 
But this the work of heart's astonishment. 



Nicholas Breton, The Arbor 
of Amorous Devises, 1593-94. 

A SWEET LULLABY. 

Come, little babe, come, silly soul. 

Thy father's shame, thy mother's grief, 
Born as I doubt to all our dole. 
And to thyself unhappy chief : 
Sing lullaby and lap it warm. 
Poor soul that thinks no creature harm. 

Thou little think'st and less dost know 

The cause of this thy mother's moan ; 
Thou want'st the wit to wail her woe. 
And I myself am all alone : 

Why dost thou weep ? why dost thou wail. 
And know'st not yet what thou dost ail ? 



NICHOLAS BRETON. 65 

Come, little wretch, ah silly heart. 

Mine only joy, what can I more ? 
If there be any wrong thy smart, ' ^5 

That may the destinies implore : 

'Twas I, I say, against my will ; 
I wail the time, but be thou still. 

And dost thou smile ? O, thy sweet face, 

Would God himself he might thee see ! 20 

No doubt thou soon wouldst purchase grace, 
I know right well, for thee and me : 

But come to mother, babe, and play, 
For father false is fled away. 

Sweet boy, if it by fortune chance 25 

Thy father home again to send, 
If death do strike me with his lance, 
Yet mayst thou me to him commend : 
If any ask thy mother's name. 
Tell how by love she purchased blame, 30 

Then will his gentle heart soon yield, 

I know him of a noble mind ; 
Although a lion in the field, 

A lamb in town thou shalt him find : 

Ask blessing, babe, be not afraid, 35 

His sugared words hath me betrayed. 

Then mayst thou joy and be right glad, 

Although in woe I seem to moan ; 
Thy father is no rascal lad, 

A noble youth of blood and bone ; 4© 

His glancing looks, if he once smile, 
Right honest women may beguile. 



66 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Come, little boy, and rock a-sleep, 

Sing lullaby and be thou still ; 
I that can do naught else but weep, 45 

Will sit by thee and wail my fill : 

God bless my babe, and lullaby, 
From this thy father's quality. 



A SONNET. 

Those eyes that hold the hand of every heart, 
That hand that holds the heart of every eye. 

That wit that goes beyond all nature's art, 
The sense too deep for wisdom to descry : 

That eye, that hand, that wit, that heavenly sense 

Doth shew my only mistress' excellence. 

O eyes that pierce into the purest heart ! 

O hands that hold the highest thoughts in thrall ! 
O wit that weighs the depth of all desart ! 

O sense that shew the secret sweet of all ! 
The heaven of heavens with heavenly power preserve thee. 
Love but thyself, and give me leave to serve thee. 

To serve, to live to look upon those eyes. 
To look, to live to kiss that heavenly hand, 

To sound that wit that doth amaze the mind. 
To know that sense, no sense can understand. 

To understand that all the world may know. 

Such wit, such sense, eyes, hands, there are no moe. 



NICHOLAS BRETON. 67 



A PASTORAL OF PHYLLIS AND CORYDON, 

V 

On a hill there grows a flower, 

Fair befall the dainty sweet ! 
By that flower there is a bower, 

Where the heavenly Muses meet. 

In that bower there is a chair, 5 

Fringed all about with gold ; 
Where doth sit the fairest fair, 

That did ever eye behold. 

It is Phyllis fair and bright. 

She that is the shepherds' joy ; lo 

She that Venus did despite. 

And did blind her little boy. 

This is she, the wise, the rich, 

And the world desires to see ; 
This is ipsa quae the which ^5 

There is none but only she. 

Who would not this face admire 1 
Who would not this saint adore ? 

Who would not this sight desire. 

Though he thought to see no more ? 20 

O, fair eyes ! yet let me see, 
One good look, and I am gone ; 

Look on me, for I am he, 
Thy poor silly Corydon. 

Thou that art the shepherd's queen, 25 

Look upon thy silly swain ; 
By thy comfort have been seen 

Dead men brought to life again. 



68 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Robert Southwell, Saint 
Peter''s Complaint, with other 
Poefus, 1595. 

SCORN NOT THE LEAST. 

Where wards are weak and foes encount'ring strong, 
Where mightier do assault than do defend, 

The feebler part puts up enforced wrong, 

And silent sees that speech could not amend. 

Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, 5 

When sun is set, the little stars will shine. 

While pike doth range the seely tench doth fly, 
And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ; 

Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by, 

These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. 10 

There is a time even for the worm to creep. 

And suck the dew while all her foes do sleep. 

The merlin cannot ever soar on high. 

Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase ; 

The tender lark will find a time to fly, 15 

And fearful hare to run a quiet race : 

He that high growth on cedars did bestow. 

Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. 

In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, 

Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe ; 20 

The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept. 

Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go. 
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May, 
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away. 



ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 69 



THE BURNING BABE. 

As I in hoary winter's night 

Stood shivering in the snow, 
Surprised I was with sudden heat, 

Which made my heart to glow ; 
And lifting up a fearful eye 5 

To view what fire was near, 
A pretty babe, all burning bright. 

Did in the air appear, 
Who, scorched with excessive heat, 

Such floods of tears did shed, lo 

As though his floods should quench his flames 

Which with his tears were fed. 
Alas,' quoth he, ' but newly born, 

In fiery heats I fry ; 
Yet none approach to warm their hearts 15 

Or feel my fire but I. 
My faultless breast the furnace is. 

The fuel, wounding thorns. 
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke. 

The ashes, shame and scorns. 20 

The fuel Justice layeth on, 

And Mercy blows the coals. 
The metal in this furnace wrought 

Are men's defiled souls. 
For which, as now on fire I am 25 

To work them to their good. 
So will I melt into a bath 

To wash them in my blood.' 
With this he vanished out of sight 

And swiftly shrunk away ; 3° 

And straight I called unto mind 

That it was Christmas-day. 



70 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS, 



Robert Southwell, Mceotiice, 
1595- 

MAN'S CIVIL WAR. 

My hovering thoughts would tiy to heaven 

And quiet nestle in the sky, 
Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore 

Without remove at anchor lie. 

But mounting thoughts are haled down 5 

With heavy poise of mortal load, 
And blustring storms deny my ship 

In Virtue's haven secure abode. 

When inward eye to heavenly sights 

Doth draw my longing heart's desire, 10 

The world with jesses of delights 

Would to her perch my thoughts retire, 

Fond Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, 

Though Reason stiffly do repine ; 
Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, 15 

Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. 

Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves. 

And overrules the captive will ; 
Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, 

They draw the wit their wish to fill. 20 

Need craves consent of soul to sense. 

Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; 
Hard hap where halves must disagree, 

Or truce of halves the whole betray ! 



HENRY CHETTLE. 71 

O cruel fight ! where lighting friend 25 

With love doth kill a favoring foe, 
Where peace with sense is war with God, 

And self-delight the seed of woe ! 

Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, 

Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; 30 

O fickle sense ! beware her gin, 
Sell not thy soul to brittle joy ! 



Henry Chettle, Piers Plain- 
ness Seven Years'' Prenticeship, 
1595- 

WILY CUPID. 

Trust not his wanton tears, 

Lest they beguile ye ; 
Trust not his childish sigh, 

He breatheth slily. 
Trust not his touch, 5 

His feeling may defile ye ; 
Trust nothing that he doth, 

The wag is wily. 
If you suffer him to prate, • 
You will rue it over-late. 10 

Beware of him, for he is witty ; 
Quickly strive the boy to bind, 
Fear him not, for he is blind : 
If he get loose, he shows no pity. 



72 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Francis Davison, The Poetical 
Rhapsody, 1602; written, 1595- 
96. 

MADRIGAL. 

TO CUPID. 

Love, if a god thou art, 

Then evermore thou must 

Be merciful and just. 
If thou be just, O wherefore doth thy dart 
Wound mine alone, and not my Lady's heart t 

If merciful, then virhy 

Am I to pain reserved, 

Who have thee truly served ; 
While she, that by thy power sets not a fly. 
Laughs thee to scorn and lives in liberty t 

Then, if a god thou wouldst accounted be, 
Heal me like her, or else wound her like me. 



THREE EPITAPHS UPON THE DEATH OF A 
RARE CHILD OF SIX YEARS OLD. 

I. 

Wit's perfection, Beauty's wonder. 
Nature's pride, the Graces' treasure. 
Virtue's hope, his friends' sole pleasure, 
This small marble stone lies under ; 
Which is often moist with tears 
For such loss in such young years. 



FRANCIS DAVISON. 73 



11. 



Lovely boy ! thou art not dead, 

But from earth to heaven fled ; 

For base earth was far unfit 

For thy beauty, grace, and wit. lo 

III. 

Thou alive on earth, sweet boy, 
Hadst an angel's wit and face ; 
And now dead, thou dost enjoy. 
In high Heaven, an angel's place. 

ODE X. 

DISPRAISE OF LOVE AND LOVER'S FOLLIES. 

If love be life, I long to die, 
Live they that list for me ; 
And he that gains the most thereby, 

A fool at least shall be. 
But he that feels the sorest fits, 5 

'Scapes with no less than loss of wits : 
An happy life they gain, 
Which love do entertain. 

In day by feigned looks they live, 

By lying dreams in night, 10 

Each frown a deadly wound doth give, 

Each smile a false delight. 
If 't hap their lady pleasant seem, 
It is for others' love they deem ; 

If void she seem of joy, 15 

Disdain doth make her coy. 



74 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Such is the peace that lovers find. 

Such is the Hfe they lead, 
Blown here and there with every wind, 

Like flowers in the mead ; 20 

Now war, now peace, now war again. 
Desire, despair, delight, disdain : 
Though dead, in midst of life, 
In peace, and yet at strife. 

ODE. 

My only star, 
Why, why are your dear eyes, 
Where all my life's peace lies, 

With me at war ? 
Why to my ruin tending, 5 

Do they still lighten woe 
On him that loves you so, 
That all his thoughts in you have birth and ending ? 

Hope of my heart, 
O wherefore do the words, 10 

Which your sweet tongue affords, 

No hope impart? 
But cruel without measure, 
To my eternal pain. 

Still thunder forth disdain i^ 

On him whose life depends upon your pleasure. 

Sunshine of joy, 
Why do your gestures, which 
All eyes and hearts bewitch, 

My bliss destroy ? 20 

And pity's sky o'erclouding. 
Of hate an endless shower 
On that poor heart still pour, 
Which in your bosom seeks his only shrouding ? 



FRANCIS DAVISON. 75 

Balm of my wound, 25 

Why are your lines, whose sight 
Should cure me with delight, 

My poison found ? 
Which, through my veins dispersing, 

Doth make my heart and mind 30 

And all my senses, find 
A living death in torments past rehearsing. 

Alas ! my fate 
Hath of your eyes deprived me. 
Which both killed and revived me 35 

And sweetened hate ; 
Your sweet voice and sweet graces. 
Which clothed in lovely weeds 
Your cruel words and deeds, 
Are intercepted by far distant places. 40 

But, O the anguish 
Which presence still presented, 
Absence hath not absented, 
Nor made to languish ; 
No, no, to increase my paining, 45 

The cause being, ah ! removed 
For which the effect I loved, 
The effect is still in greatest force remaining. 

O cruel tiger ! 
If to your hard heart's center 50 

Tears, vows, and prayers may enter, 

Desist your rigor ; 
And let kind lines assure me. 
Since to my deadly wound 

No salve else can be found, 55 

That you that kill me, yet at length will cure me. 



76 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Edmund Spenser, Prothalanu- 
on, or A Spousal Verse, 1596. 

PROTHALAMION. 

Calm was the day, and through the trembling air 

Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play 

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay 

Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair ; 

When I (whom sullen care, 5 

Through discontent of my long fruitless stay 

In princes' court, and expectation vain 

Of idle hopes, which still do fly away 

Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain) 

Walked forth to ease my pain 10 

Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames ; 

Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, 

Was painted all with variable flowers, 

And all the meads adorned with dainty gems, 

Fit to deck maidens' bowers, 15 

And crown their paramours 

Against the bridal day, which is not long: 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 

There, in a meadow, by the river's side, 

A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy, 20 

All lovely daughters of the flood thereby, 

With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied 

As each had been a bride ; 

And each one had a little wicker basket 

Made of fine twigs, entrailed curiously, 25 

In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket. 

And with fine fingers cropped full feateously 

The tender stalks on high. 



EDMUND SPENSER. 77 

Of every sort which in that meadow grew 
They gathered some ; the violet, palUd blue, 3° 

The little daisy, that at evening closes. 
The virgin lily, and the primrose true. 
With store of vermeil roses. 
To deck their bridegrooms' posies 

Against the bridal day, which was not long : 35 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 

With that I saw two swans of goodly hue 
Come softly swimming down along the Lee ; 
Two fairer birds I yet did never see ; 
The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew 4° 

Did never whiter shew. 

Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be 
For love of Leda, whiter did appear ; 
Yet Leda was, they say, as white as he. 
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near; 45 

So purely white they were, 

That e'en the gentle stream the which them bare 
Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare 
To wet their silken feathers, lest they might 
Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair, 5° 

And mar their beauties bright. 
That shone as heaven's light. 
Against their bridal day, which was not long : 
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song, 

Eftsoons the nymphs, which now had flowers their fill, 55 

Ran all in haste to see that silver brood, 

As they came floating on the crystal flood ; 

Whom when they saw, they stood amazed still, 

Their wondring eyes to fill ; 

Them seemed they never saw a sight so fair, 6o 

Of fowls so lovely that they sure did deem 

Them heavenly born, or to be that same pair 



78 ELJZABETHAX LYRICS. 

Which through the sky draw Venus' silver team 
For sure they did not seem 

To be begot of any earthly seed, ' 65 

But rather angels, or of angels' breed ; 
Yet were they bred of summer's heat, they say, 
In sweetest season, when each flower and weed 
The earth did fresh array ; 

So fresh they seemed as day, 70 

Even as their bridal day, which was not long : 
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 

Then forth they all out of their baskets drew 

Great store of flowers, the honor of the field, 

That to the sense did fragrant odors yield, 75 

All which upon those goodly birds they threw 

And all the waves did strew. 

That like old Peneus' waters they did seem. 

When down along by pleasant Tempe's shore, 

Scattred with flowers, through Thessaly they stream, 80 

That they appear, through lilies' plenteous store, 

Like a bride's chamber-floor. 

Two of those nymphs meanwhile two garlands bound 

Of freshest flowers which in that mead they found. 

The which presenting all in trim array, 85 

Their snowy foreheads therewithal they crowned ; 

Whilst one did sing this lay 

Prepared against that day. 

Against their bridal day, which was not long : 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 90 

' Ye gentle birds, the world's fair ornament, 

And Heaven's glory, whom this happy hour 

Doth lead unto your lovers' blissful bower, 

Joy may you have, and gentle heart's content 

Of your love's couplement ; 95 



EDMUND SPENSER. 79 

And let fair Venus, that is queen of love, 

With her heart-quelling son upon you smile, 

Whose smile, they say, hath virtue to remove 

All love's dislike, and friendship's faulty guile 

F'or ever to assoil. loo 

Let endless peace your steadfast hearts accord, 

And blessed plenty wait upon your board : 

And let your bed with pleasures chaste abound. 

That fruitful issue may to you afford 

Which may your foes confound, 105 

And make your joys redound 

Upon your bridal day, which is not long : 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. ' 

So ended she ; and all the rest around 
To her redoubled that her undersons:, no 

Which said, their bridal day should not be long : 
And gentle Echo from the neighbor ground 
Their accents did resound. 
So forth those joyous birds did pass along 
Adown the Lee that to them murmured low, 115 

As he would speak, but that he lacked a tongue, 
Yet did by signs his glad affection show. 
Making his stream run slow. 
And all the fowl which in his flood did dwell 
Gan flock about these twain that did excel 120 

The rest so far as Cynthia doth shend 
The lesser stars. So they, enranged well, 
Did on those two attend. 
And their best service lend 

Against their wedding-day, which was not long: 125 
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 

At length they all to merry London came. 
To merry London, my most kindly nurse, 
That to me gave this life's flrst native source, 



80 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Though from another place I take my name, 130 

An house of ancient fame : 

There when they came, whereas those bricky towers. 

The which on Thames' broad aged back do ride, 

Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers 

There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide, 135 

Till they decayed through pride : 

Next whereunto there stands a stately place, 

Where oft I gained gifts and goodly grace 

Of that great lord which therein wont to dwell. 

Whose want too well now feels my friendless case : 140 

But ah ! here fits not well 

Old woes, but joys, to tell 

Against the bridal day, which is not long : 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song : 

Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer, 145 

Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder, 

Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder, 

And Hercules' two pillars standing near 

Did make to quake and fear : 

Fair branch of honor, flower of chivalry ! 150 

That fillest England with thy triumphs' fame, 

Joy have thou of thy noble victory. 

And endless happiness of thine own name 

That promiseth the same ; 

That through thy prowess and victorious arms, 155 

Thy country may be freed from foreign harms. 

And great Eliza's glorious name may ring 

Through all the world, filled with thy wide alarms, 

Which some brave Muse may sing 

To ages following ^^° 

Upon the bridal day, which is not long : 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 



BARNABY BARNES. 81 

From those high towers, this noble lord issuing, 

Like radient Hesper when his golden hair 

In th' ocean billows he hath bathed fair, 165 

Descended to the river's open viewing. 

With a great train ensuing. 

Above the rest were goodly to be seen 

Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature, 

Beseeming well the bower of any queen, 170 

With gifts of wit and ornaments of nature 

Fit for so goodly stature, 

That like the twins of Jove they seemed in sight. 

Which deck the baldrick of the heavens bright ; 

They two, forth pacing to the river's side, i75 

Received those two fair brides, their loves' delight ; 

Which, at the appointed tide. 

Each one did make his bride. 

Against their bridal day, which is not long : 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 180 



Barn ABE Barnes, A Divine 
Century of Spiritual So?mets, 
1595- 

THE TALENT. 

Gracious, Divine, and most Omnipotent ! 
Receive thy servant's talent in good part. 
Which hid it not, but willing did convart 
It to best use he could, when it was lent : 
The sum — though slender, yet not all misspent — 
Receive, dear God of grace, from cheerful heart 
Of him that knows how merciful thou art, 
And with what grace to contrite sinners bent. 



82 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I know my fault, I did not as 1 should ; 
My sinful flesh against my soul rebelled ; 
But since I did endeavor what I could, 
Let not my little nothing be withheld 
From thy rich treasuries of endless grace ; 
But, for thy sake, let it procure a place. 



William Shakespeare, The 
Merchant of Venice, 1596. 

A SONG 

THE WHILST BASSANIO COMMENTS ON THE CASKETS TO HIMSELF. 

Tell me where is fancy bred. 
Or in the heart or in the head ? 
How begot, how nourished ? 
Reply, reply. 

It is engendered in the eyes, 5 

With gazing fed ; and fancy dies 
In the cradle where it lies : 

Let us all ring fancy's knell ; 

I'll begin it, — Ding, dong, bell. 

Ding, dong, bell. • 10 



From William Barleys, Ne-w 
Book of Tahliture, 1 596. 

SONNET. 

Those eyes that set my fancy on a fire. 
Those crisped hairs that hold my heart in chains, 
Those dainty hands which conquered my desire, 
That wit which of my thoughts doth hold the reins : 



NICHOLAS YONGE. 83 

Then Love be judge, what heart may there withstand 5 

Such eyes, such head, such wit, and such a hand ? 

Those eyes for clearness doth the stars surpass, 

Those hairs obscure the brightness of the sun, 

Those hands more white than ever ivory was, 

That wit even to the skies hath glory won. 10 

O eyes that pierce the skies without remorse ! 

O hairs of night that wear a royal crown ! 

O hands that conquer more than Caesar's force ! 

O wit that turns huge kingdoms upside down ! 



From Nicholas Yonge's Mu- 
sica Transalpina, Book II., 
1597- 

MADRIGAL. 

^ Brown is my love, but graceful ; 
And each renowned whiteness, 
Matched with thy lovely brown, loseth its brightness. 

Fair is my love, but scornful ; 
Yet have I seen despised 
Dainty white lilies, and sad flowers well prized. 



William Shakespeare, Son- 
nets, 1609; written about 1598. 

SONNETS. 
XIX. 
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, 
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood ; 
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws. 
And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her blood ; 



84 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, 

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, 

To the wide world and all her fading sweets ; 

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime : 

O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow. 

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen ; 

Him in thy course untainted do allow 

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. 

Yet, do thy worst, old Time : despite thy wrong. 

My love shall in my verse ever live young. 

XXIX. 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 

I all alone beweep my outcast state, 

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 

And look upon myself and curse my fate. 

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope. 

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed. 

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope. 

With what I most enjoy contented least ; 

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising. 

Haply I think on thee, and then my state. 

Like to the lark at break of day arising 

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate ; 

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings 

That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

XXXIII. 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye. 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green. 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; 



IVILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 

With ugly rack on his celestial face, 

And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 

Even so my sun one early morn did shine 

With all-triumphant splendor on my brow ; 

But out, alack ! he was but one hour mine ; 

The region cloud hath masked him from me now. 

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ; 

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. 



LX. 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 

So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 

Each changing place with that which goes before 

In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

Nativity, once in the main of light, 

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned. 

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight. 

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. 

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth 

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, 

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth. 

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: 

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand. 

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 

LXXT. 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
Give warning to the world that I am fled 
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell • 



85 



86 ELJZABETHA.X LYRJCS. 

Nay, if you read this line, remember not 5 

The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 

If thinking on me then should make you woe. 

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse 

When I perhaps compounded am with clay, lo 

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, 

But let your love even with my life decay. 

Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 

And mock you with me after I am gone. 

CVI. 

When in the chronicle of wasted time 

I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 

And beauty making beautiful old rime 

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights. 

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 5 

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 

I see their antique pen would have expressed 

Even such a beauty as you master now. 

So all their praises are but prophecies 

Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; lo 

And, for they looked but with divining eyes, 

They had not skill enough your worth to sing : 

For we, which now behold these present days, 

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 

CXVI. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds. 

Or bends with the remover to remove : 

O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark S 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 



RICHARD BARNFIELD. 87 

It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Wliose worth's unknown, although his height be taken ; 

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; lo 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ nor no man ever loved. 

cxxx. 

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ; 

Coral is far more red than her lips' red ; 

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ; 

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 

I have seen roses damasked red and white, 5 

But no such roses see I in her cheeks ; 

And in some perfumes is there more delight 

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 

That music hath a far more pleasing sound ; lo 

I grant I never saw a goddess go, 

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground ; 

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 

As any she belied with false compare. 



Richard Ba rn field, /'^<fwj; In 
Divers Humors, 1598. 

SONNET: 

IN PRAISE OF MUSIC AND POETRY. 

If music and sweet poetry agree, 
As they must needs, the sister and the brother, 
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me, 
Because thou lov'st the one and I the other. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch 5 

Upon the lute doth ravish human sense ; 

Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such, 

As passing all conceit, needs no defence. 

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound 

That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes ; 10 

And I in deep delight am chiefly drowned 

Whenas himself to singing he betakes : 

0.je god is god of both, as poets feign. 

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain. 

AN ODE. 

As it fell upon a day, 

In the merry month of May, 

Sitting in a pleasant shade, 

Which a grove of myrtles made. 

Beasts did leap and birds did sing, 5 

Trees did grow and plants did spring: 

Everything did banish moan, 

Save the nightingale alone. 

She, poor bird, as all forlorn. 

Leaned her breast up-till a thorn, 10 

And there sung the dolefulst ditty, 

That to hear it was great pity. 
* Fie, fie, fie ! ' now would she cry ; 
' Teru, teru ! ' by-and-by ; 

That to hear her so complain 15 

Scarce I could from tears refrain : 

For her griefs so lively shown 

Made me think upon mine own. 

Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, 

None takes pity on thy pain. 20 

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee ; 

Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee ; 



RICHARD BARNFIELD. 89 

King Pandion he is dead, 
All thy friends are lapt in lead ; 
All thy fellow birds do sing, 25 

Careless of thy sorrowing. 
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled, 
Thou and I were both beguiled. 
Every one that flatters thee 

Is no friend in misery : 3° 

Words are easy, like the wind ; 
Faithful friends are hard to find ; 
Every man will be thy friend, 
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend ; 
But if store of crowns be scant, 35 

No man will supply thy want. 
If that one be prodigal, 
Bountiful they will him call ; 
And with such-like flattering, 
'Pity but he were a king.' 4° 

If he be addict to vice. 
Quickly him they will entice. 
If to women he be bent, 
They have at commandement. 
But if Fortune once do frown, 45 

Then farewell his great renown : 
They that fawned on him before, 
Use his company no more. 
He that is thy friend indeed, 
He will help thee in thy need ; S® 

If thou sorrow, he will weep ; 
If thou wake, he cannot sleep : 
Thus of every grief in heart 
He with thee doth bear a part. 
These are certain signs to know 55 

Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe. 



90 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



From Giles Farnaby's Canzon- 
ets, 1598. 

CANZONET. 

Thrice blessed be the giver 

That gave sweet Love that golden quiver, 

And live he long among the gods anointed 

That made the arrow-heads sharp-pointed : 

If either of them both had quailed, 

She of my love and I of hers had failed. 



From John Wilbye's Madrigals, 
1598. 

MADRIGAL. 

Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting. 
Which, clad in damask mantles, deck the arbors ; 
And then behold your lips, where sweet love harbors ; 

My eyes present me with a double doubting : 
For viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes, 
Whether the roses be your lips, or your lips the roses. 



George Chapman, Hero and 
Leander, 1598. 

EPITHALAMION TERATOS. 

Come, come, dear Night, Love's mart of kisses, 

Sweet close of his ambitious line. 
The fruitful summer of his blisses, 

Love's glory doth in darkness shine. 



GEORGE CHAPMAN. 91 

O come, soft rest of cares, come, Night, 5 

Come naked Virtue's only tire, 
The reaped harvest of the light 

Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire. 
Love calls to war ; 

Sighs his alarms, lo 

Lips his swords are, 
The field his arms. 

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand 

On glorious Day's outfacing face ; 
And all thy crowned flames command, '5 

For torches to our nuptial grace. 
Love calls to war ; 
Sighs his alarms. 
Lips his swords are, 

The field his arms. 20 

No need have we of factious Day, 

To cast, in envy of thy peace, 
Her balls of discord in thy way ; 

Here Beauty's day doth never cease ; 

Day is abstracted here, 25 

And varied in a triple sphere. 
Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee. 
Ere thou come here, let Thetis thrice refine thee. 
Love calls to war ; 

Sighs his alarms, 3° 

Lips his swords are. 
The field his arms. 



92 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



MuNDAY and Chettle, The 
Death of Robert Earl of Hun- 
tingdon, acted 1598. 

ROBIN HOOD'S DIRGE. 

Weep, weep, ye woodmen, wail, 

Your hands with sorrow wring ; 
Your master Robin Hood lies dead, 

Therefore sigh as you sing. 

Here lies his primer and his beads, 
His bent bow and his arrows keen, 

His good sword and his holy cross : 
Now cast on flowers fresh and green. 

And, as they fall, shed tears and say 
Well-a, well-a-day, well-a, well-a-day : 

Thus cast ye flowers fresh, and sing, 
And on to Wakefield take your way. 



Thomas Dekker, The Shoe- 
makers' Holiday, acted 1599. 

THE SECOND THREE MEN'S SONG. 

Cold's the wind, and wet's the rain. 

Saint Hugh be our good speed : 
111 is the weather that bringeth no gain, 

Nor helps good hearts in need. 

Troll the bowl, the jolly nut brown bowl. 

And here, kind mate, to thee ! 
Let's sing a dirge for Saint Hugh's soul 

And down it merrily. 



THOMAS DEKKER. 93 

Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, 

Hey derry derry down-a-down ! lo 

Close with the tenor boy ; 
Ho! well done, to me let come, 

Ring compass, gentle joy. 

Cold's the wind, and wet's the rain. 

Saint Hugh be our good speed : 15 

111 is the weather that bringeth no gain, 

Nor helps good hearts in need. 



Thomas Dekker, The Pleasant 
Comedy of Patient Grissell, 
acted 1599. 

O SWEET CONTENT. 

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers } 

O sweet content ! 
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed t 

O punishment ! 
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex^d 5 

To add to golden numbers, golden numbers .? 
O sweet content ! O sweet O sweet content ! 

Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 

Honest labor bears a lovely face ; 
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny ! 10 

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring .? 

O sweet content ! 
Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears ? 

O punishment ! 
Then he that patiently want's burden bears 15 

No burden bears, but is a king, a king ! 
O sweet content ! O sweet O sweet content ! 



94 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 
Honest labor bears a lovely face ; 
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny ! 

LULLABY. 

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, 
Smiles awake you when you rise. 
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, 
And I will sing a lullaby : 
Rock them, rock them, lullaby. 

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you ; 
You are care, and care must keep you. 
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, 
And I will sing a lullaby : 
Rock them, rock them, lullaby. 



Robert Devereux, Earl of 
Essex, Certain Verses {Ashm. 
MS.), written about 1599. 

A PASS/OX OF AfY LORD OF ESSEX. 

Happv were he could finish forth his fate 

In some unhaunted desert, most obscure 
From all society, from love and hate 

Of worldly folk, there might he sleep secure ; 
There wake again, and give God ever praise, 

Content with hips and haws and brambleberry, 
In contemplation passing still his days, 

And change of holy thoughts to make him merry. 
That when he dies, his tomb might be a bush. 
Where harmless robin dwells with 2:entle thrush. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 95 



William Shakespeare, As You 
Like It, acted 1 599. 

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 

Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And turn his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither : 5 

Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 

Who doth ambition shun. 
And loves to live i' the sun, 10 

Seeking the food he eats. 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither : 
Here shall he see 

No enemy 15 

But winter and rough weather. 

MAN'S INGRATITUDE. 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man's ingratitude ; 
Thy tooth is not so keen. 

Because thou art not seen, 5 

Although thy breath be rude. 
Heigh-ho ! sing heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly : 
Then heigh-ho, the holly ! 
This life is most jolly. 10 



96 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
That dost not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot : 
Though thou the waters warp. 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remembred not. 
Heigh-ho ! sing heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. 
Then heigh-ho, the holly ! 
This life is most jolly. 



IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. 

It was a lover and his lass 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino. 
That o'er the green corn-field did pass 
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time. 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, 

Sweet lovers love the Spring. 

Between the acres of the rye, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino. 
These pretty country folks would lie. 
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding. 

Sweet lovers love the Spring. 

This carol they began that hour. 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino, 

How that a life was but a flower 

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time. 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, 
Sweet lovers love the Spring. 



JOHN DONNE. 97 

And therefore take the present time, 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino, 20 

For love is crowned with the prime 
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, 

Sweet lovers love the Spring. 



John Donne, Poems, with Ele- 
gies on the Author's Death, 
1633; written 1 590-1600. 

SONG. 

Go and catch a falling star, 

Get with child a mandrake root, 
Tell me where all past hours are, 
Or who cleft the Devil's foot ; 
Teach me to hear mermaids singing, 5 

Or to keep off envy's stinging, 
Or find 
What wind 
Serves to advance an honest mind. 

If thou be'st born to strange sights, 10 

Things invisible go see, 
Ride ten thousand days and nights. 
Till age snow white hairs on thee. 
Thou at thy return wilt tell me 
All strange wonders that befell thee, 15 

And swear, 
Nowhere 
Lives a woman true and fair. 



98 ELIZABEl'HAN LYRICS. 

If thou find'st one, let me know, 

Such a pilgrimage were sweet ; 20 

Yet do not, I would not go, 

Though at next door we should meet. 
Though she were true when you met her, 
And last till you write your letter, 

Yet she 25 

Will be 
False, ere I come, to two or three. 

L O VER'S INFINITENESS. 

If yet I have not all thy love. 

Dear, I shall never have it all ; 
I cannot breathe one other sigh to move, 
Nor can entreat one other tear to fall ; 
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee, 5 

Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters, I have spent ; 

Yet no more can be due to me. 

Than at the bargain made was meant : 
If, then, thy gift of love were partial, 
That some to me, some should to others fall, 10 

Dear, I shall never have it all. 

Or if then thou gavest me all. 

All was but all which thou hadst then : 
But if in thy heart since there be, or shall 
New love created be by other men, 15 

Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears. 
In sighs, in oaths, in letters outbid me. 

This new love may beget new fears ; 

For this love was not vowed by thee. 
And yet it was, thy gift being general : 20 

The ground, thy heart, is mine ; whatever shall 

Grow there, dear, I should have it all. 



JOHN DONNE. 99 

Yet 1 would not have all yet ; 

He that hath all can have no more ; 
And since my love doth every day admit 25 

New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store. 
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart ; 
If thou canst give it, then thou never gav'st it: 
Love's riddles are that, though thy heart depart, 
It stays at home, and thou with losing sav'st it, 3° 

But we will love a way more liberal 
Than changing hearts, — to join them ; so we shall 

Be one, and one another's All. 

SONG. 

Sweetest love, I do not go 

For weariness of thee. 
Nor in hope the world can show 
A fitter love for me ; 

But since that I 5 

Must die at last, 'tis best 
Thus to use myself in jest, 

By feigned deaths to die. 

Yesternight the sun went hence, 

And yet is here to-day ; 10 

He hath no desire nor sense, 
Nor half so short a way. 
Then fear not me. 
But believe that I shall make 

Hastier journeys, since I take 15 

More wings and spurs than he. 

O how feeble is man's power, 

That, if good fortune fall. 
Cannot add another hour, 

Nor a lost hour recall. 20 



1- r 



100 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But come bad chance, 
And we join to it our strength, 
And we teach it art and length, 

Itself o'er us t' advance. 

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st no wind, 25 

But sigh'st my soul away ; 
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind, 
My life's blood doth decay. 
It cannot be 
That thou lov'st me as thou say'st, 30 

If in thine my life thou waste. 
That art the best of me. 

Let not thy divining heart 

Forethink me any ill. 
Destiny may take thy part 35 

And may thy fears fulfil ; 
But think that we 
Are but turned aside to sleep : 
They who one another keep 

Alive, ne'er parted be. 40 



THE DREAM. 

Dear love, for nothing less than thee 
Would I have broke this happy dream ; 

It was a theme 
For reason, much too strong for fantasy. 
Therefore thou wak'dst me wisely ; yet 5 

My dream thou brak'st not, but continu'd'st it : 
Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suflfice 
To make dreams truths, and fables histories. 
Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best 
Not to dream all my dream, let's do the rest. 10 



JOHX DONNE. 101 

As lightning or a taper's light, 

Thine eyes, and not thy noise, waked me. 

Yet I thought thee 
(For thou lov'st truth) an angel at first sight ; 
But when I saw thou saw'st my heart, 15 

And knew'st my thoughts, beyond an angel's art, 
When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when 
Excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then ; 
I must confess, it could not choose but be 
Profane to think thee anything but thee. 20 

Coming and staying showed thee thee. 
But rising makes me doubt, that now 

Thou art not thou. 
That love is weak, where fear's as strong as he ; 
'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave, 25 

If mixture it of fear, shame, honor, have. 
Perchance as torches, which must ready be, 
Men light and put out, so thou dealst with me ; 
Thou cam'st to kindle, go'st to come : then I 
Will dream that hope again, but else would die. 3° 

THE MESSAGE. 

Send home my long-strayed eyes to me. 
Which, O, too long have dwelt on thee ; 
But if there they have learned such ill, 
Such forc'd fashions 

And false passions, 5 

That they be 
Made by thee 
Fit for no good sight, keep them still. 

Send home my harmless heart again, 

Which no unworthy thought could stain ; 10 



102 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But if it be taught by thine 
To make jestings 
Of pretestings, 

And break both 

Word and oath, 15 

Keep it, for then 'tis none of mine. 

Yet send me back my heart and eyes, 
That I may know and see thy lies. 
And may laugh and joy when thou 

Art in anguish, 20 

And dost languish 
For some one 
That will none. 
Or prove as false as thou dost now. 

UPON PARTING FROM HIS MISTRESS. 

As virtuous men pass mildly away, 

And whisper to their souls to go, 
Whilst some of their sad friends do say 

Now his breath goes, and some say no ; 

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5 

No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move ; 

'Twere profanation of our joys 
To tell the laity our love. 

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears. 

Men reckon what it did and meant ; 10 

But trepidation of the spheres. 
Though greater far, is innocent. 

Dull sublunary lovers' love. 

Whose soul is sense, cannot admit 
Absence ; for that it doth remove 15 

Those things which elemented it. 



JOHN DONNE. 103 

But we, by a love so far refined 

That ourselves know not what it is, 
Inter-assured of the mind. 

Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. 20 

Our two souls, therefore, which are one, 

Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion. 

Like gold to airy thinness beat. 

If they be two, they are two so 25 

As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show 

To move, but doth if th' other do. 

And though it in the centre sit. 

Yet when the other far doth roam, 30 

It leans and hearkens after it. 

And grows erect as that comes home. 

Such wilt thou be to me, ^ho must. 

Like th' other foot, obliquely run : 
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35 

And makes me end where I begun. 



LOVE'S DEITY. 

I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost, 
Who died before the god of love was born : 

I cannot think that he, that then loved most, 
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn. 

But since this god produced a destiny, 

And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be, 

I must love her that loves not me. 



104 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Sure they which made him god meant not so much, 
Nor he in his young godhead practised it ; 

But when an even flame two hearts did touch, lo 

His office was indulgently to fit 

Actives to passives ; correspondency 

Only his subject was ; it cannot be 

Love, if I love who loves not me. 

But every modern god will now extend 15 

His vast prerogative as far as Jove ; 
To rage, to lust, to write too, to commend, 

All is the purlieu of the god of love. 

were we wakened by this tyranny 

To ungod this child again, it could not be 20 

1 should love her that loves not me. 

Rebel and atheist, too, why murmur I, 

As though I felt the worst that Love could do ? 

Love might make me leave loving, or might try 

A deeper plague, to make her love me too, 25 

Which, since she loves before, I am loath to see ; 

Falsehood is worse than hate ; and that must be, 

If she whom I love should love me. 



THE FUNERAL. 

Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 

Nor question much 
That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm ; 
The mystery, the sign, you must not touch. 

For 'tis my outward soul. 
Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone, 

Will leave this to control 
And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. 



HENRY CONSTABLE. 105 

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall 

Through every part, lo 

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all ; 
The hairs, which upward grew and strength and art 

Have from a better brain, 
Can better do it : except she meant that I 

By this should know my pain, 15 

As prisoners then are manacled, when they 're condemned 
to die. 

Whate'er she meant by 't, bury it with me ; 

For since I am 
Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry, 
If into others' hands these relics came. 20 

As 'twas humility 
T' afford to it all that a soul can do ; 

So 'tis some bravery. 
That, since you would have none of me. I burv some of vou. 



Henry Constable, in Eng- 
land's Helicon, 1600. 

DAMELUS' SONG TO HIS DIAPHENIA. 

DiAPHENiA, like the daffadowndilly, 
White as the sun, fair as the lily, 

Heigh ho, how I do love thee ! 
I do love thee as my lambs 
Are beloved of their dams ; 

How blest were I if thou wouldst prove me ! 

Diaphenia, like the spreading roses. 
That in thy sweets all sweets encloses, 
Fair sweet, how I do love thee ! 



106 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I do love thee as each flower 
Loves the sun's life-giving power ; 

For dead, thy breath to life might move me. 

Diaphenia, like to all things blessed 
When all thy praises are expressed, 

Dear joy, how I do love thee ! 
As the birds do love the Spring, 
Or the bees their careful king : 

Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me. 



TO HIS FLOCK. 

Feed on, my flocks, securely. 
Your shepherd watcheth surely ; 
Run about, my little lambs, 
Skip and wanton with your dams. 

Your loving herd with care will tend ye. 

Sport on, fair flocks, at pleasure, 
Nip Vesta's flow'ring treasure ; 
I myself will duly hark, 
When my watchful dog doth bark ; 
From wolf and fox I will defend ye. 



Nicholas Breton, in the same. 

CORYDON'S SUPPLICATION TO PHYLLIS. 

Sweet Phyllis, if a silly swain 

May sue to thee for grace. 
See not thy loving shepherd slain 

With looking on thy face ; 



NICHOLAS BRETON. 107 

But think what power thou hast got 5 

Upon my flock and me, 
Thou seest they now regard me not, 

But all do follow thee. 
And if I have so far presumed 

With prying in thine eyes, ^^ 

Yet let not comfort be consumed 

That in thy pity lies ; 
But as thou art that Phyllis fair, 

That fortune favor gives, 
So let not love die in despair ^5 

That in thy favor lives. 
The deer do browse upon the briar, 

The birds do pick the cherries ; 
And will not Beauty grant Desire 

One handful of her berries ? ^o 

If it be so that thou hast sworn 
That none shall look on thee, 
Yet let me know thou dost not scorn 

To cast a look on me. 
But if thy beauty make thee proud, 25 

Think then what is ordained ; 
The heavens have never yet allowed 

That love should be disdained. 
Then lest the Fates that favor love 

Should curse thee for unkind, 3° 

Let me report for thy behoove 

The honor of thy mind; 
Let Corydon with full consent 
Set down what he hath seen. 
That Phyllida with Love's content 35 

Is sworn the shepherds' queen. 



108 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Anthony Munday, in the same. 

MONTANA THE SHEPHERD HIS LOVE TO 
A MINT A. 

I SERVE Aminta, whiter than the snow, 

Straighter than cedar, brighter than the glass ; 

More fine in trip than foot of running roe. 

More pleasant than the field of flow'ring grass ; 

More gladsome to my withering joys that fade 5 

Than winter's sun or summer's cooling shade. 

Sweeter than swelling grape of ripest wine, 
Softer than feathers of the fairest swan ; 

Smoother than jet, more stately than the pine, 

Fresher than poplar, smaller than my span ; ic 

Clearer than Phoebus' fiery-pointed beam, 

Or icy crust of crystal's frozen stream. 

Yet is she curster than the bear by kind. 
And harder-hearted than the aged oak ; 

More glib than oil, more fickle than the wind, 15 

More stiff than steel, no sooner bent but broke. 

Lo ! thus my service is a lasting sore. 

Yet will I serve, although I die therefore. 

TO COLIN CLOUT. 

Beauty sat bathing by a spring. 

Where fairest shades did hide her, 
The winds blew calm, the birds did sing. 

The cool streams ran beside her. 
My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye 5 

To see what was forbidden. 
But better memory said, fie. 

So vain desire was chidden. 



EDMUND BOLTON. 109 

Into a slumber then I fell, 

When fond imagination lo 

Seemed to see, but could not tell 

Her feature or her fashion. 
But even as babes in dreams do smile, 

And sometimes fall a-weeping, 
So I awaked, as wise this while, 15 

As when I fell a-sleeping. 



Edmund Bolton, in the same. 

A CANZON PASTORAL LN HONOR 
OF HER MAJESTY. 

Alas ! what pleasure, now the pleasant spring 

Hath given place 
To harsh black frosts the sad ground covering, 

Can we, poor we, embrace, 
When every bird on every branch can sing 

Naught but this note of woe, Alas ? 
Alas ! this note of woe why should we sound ? 
With us, as May, September hath a prime ; 
Then, birds and branches, your Alas is fond. 
Which call upon the absent summer-time. 

For did flowers make our May, 

Or the sunbeams your day. 
When night and winter did the world embrace, 
Well might you wail your ill and sing Alas. 

Lo, matron-like the earth herself attires 

In habit grave ; 
Naked the fields are, bloomless are the briars. 

Yet we a summer have. 
Who in our clime kindleth these living fires, 
Which blooms can on the briars save. 



no ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

No ice doth crystallize the running brook, 
No blast deflowers the flower-adornbd field. 
Crystal is clear, but clearer is the look 
Which to our climes these living fires doth yield. 

Winter, though everywhere, 25 

Hath no abiding here : 
On brooks and briars she doth rule alone. 
The sun which lights our world is always one. 



A PALINODE. 

As withereth the primrose by the river, 
As fadeth summer's sun from gliding fountains, 
As vanisheth the light-blown bubble ever. 
As melteth snow upon the mossy mountains : 
So melts, so vanisheth, so fades, so withers, 5 

The rose, the shine, the bubble, and the snow, 
Of praise, pomp, glory, joy, which short life gathers. 
Fair praise, vain pomp, sweet glory, brittle joy. 
The withered primrose by the mourning river, 
The faded summer's sun from weeping fountains, 10 

The light-blown bubble vanished for ever. 
The molten snow upon the naked mountains, 
Are emblems that the treasures we uplay, 
Soon wither, vanish, fade, and melt away. 

For as the snow, whose lawn did overspread 15 

Th' ambitious hills, which giant-like did threat 

To pierce the heaven with their aspiring head, 

Naked and bare doth leave their craggy seat ; 

Whenas the bubble, which did empty fly, 

The dalliance of the undiscerned wind, 20 

On whose calm rolling waves it did rely. 

Hath shipwrack made, where it did dalliance find ; 



JOHN DOWLAND. Ill 

And when the sunshine which dissolved the snow, 

Colored the bubble with a pleasant vary, 

And made the rathe and timely primrose grow, 25 

Swarth clouds withdrawn, which longer time do tarry : 
O what is praise, pomp, glory, joy, but so 
As shine by fountains, bubbles, flowers, or snow ? 



From John Dowland's Second 
Book of Songs or Airs, 1600. 

COME, SORROW, COME. 

Come, ye heavy states of night, 
Do my father's spirit right ; 
Soundings baleful let me borrow, 
Burthening my song with sorrow. 

Come, Sorrow, come ! her eyes that sings 

By thee are turned into springs. 

Come, you virgins of the night, 
That in dirges sad delight. 
Choir my anthems : I do borrow 
Gold nor pearl, but sounds of sorrow. 

Come, Sorrow, come ! her eyes that sings 

By thee are turned into springs. 

I SAW MY LADY WEEP. 

I SAW my lady weep. 
And Sorrow proud to be advanced so 
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. 

Her face was full of woe : 
But such a woe, believe me, as wins more hearts 
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. 



112 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Sorrow was there made fair, 
And passion wise ; tears a delightful thing ; 
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare ; 

She made her sighs to sing, . lo 

And all things with so sweet a sadness move 
As made my heart at once both grieve and love. 

O fairer than aught else 
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve. 
Enough, enough : your joyful look excels ; 15 

Tears kill the heart, believe. 
O strive not to be excellent in woe. 
Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow. 



From Thomas Weelkes' Mad- 
rigals of Five and Six Parts, 
1600. 

BEAUTY'S TRIUMPH. 

Like two proud armies marching in the field, 
Joining in thund'ring fight, each scorns to yield ; 
So in my heart, your beauty and my reason, 
One claims the crown, the other says 't is treason. 
But O ! your beauty shineth as the sun ; 
And dazzled reason yields as quite undone. 



From the Oxford Music School 
MS.; author unknown, date 
of writing uncertain. 

MY HEART. 

Thou sent'st to me a heart was sound, 

I took it to be thine ; 
But when I saw it had a wound, 

I knew that heart was mine. 



BEN JONSOX. 113 

A bounty of a strange conceit, 5 

To send mine own to me, 
And send it in a worse estate 

Than when it came to thee. 



Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels^ 
acted 1600. 

ECHO'S DIRGE FOR * NARCISSUS. 

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears ; 

Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs ; 
List to the heavy part the music bears, 

Woe weeps out her division when she sings. 
Droop herbs and flowers. 
Fall grief in showers. 
Our beauties are not ours ; 
O, I could still. 
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill. 

Drop, drop, drop, drop. 
Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil. 

HYMN TO DIANA. 

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, 

Now the sun is laid to sleep. 
Seated in thy silver chair. 

State in wonted manner keep : 
Hesperus entreats thy light, 
Goddess excellently bright. 

Earth, let not thy envious shade 

Dare itself to interpose ; 
Cynthia's shining orb was made 

Heaven to clear when day did close : 
Bless us then with wished sight. 
Goddess excellently bright. 



114 ELIZABETHAN- LYRICS. 

Lay thy bow of pearl apart 

And thy crystal-shining quiver ; 
Give unto the flying hart 15 

Space to breathe, how short soever : 
Thou that mak'st a day of night, 
Goddess excellently bright. 

• Ben Jonson, Poetaster, 1601. 

HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS. 

If I freely can discover 

What would please me in my lover, 

I would have her fair and witty, 

Savoring more of court than city ; 

A little proud, but full of pity ; 5 

Light and humorous in her toying ; 

Oft building hopes, and soon destroying ; 

Long, but sweet in the enjoying. 
Neither too easy, nor too hard : 
All extremes I would have barred. 10 

She should be allowed her passions, 

So they were but used as fashions ; 

Sometimes froward, and then frowning, 
Sometimes sickish, and then swowning, 
Every fit with change still crowning. 1 5 

Purely jealous I would have her; 
Then only constant when I crave her, 
'Tis a virtue should not save her. 

Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me. 

Neither her peevishness annoy me. 20 



BEN JONS ON. 115 



Ben Jonson, in Divers Poetical 
Essays, affixed to Chester's 
Lovers Martyr, i6oi. 

EPODE. 

Not to know vice at all, and keep true state, 

Is virtue, and not fate : 
Next to that virtue is to know vice well, 

And her black spite expel. 
Which to effect (since no breast is so sure, 5 

Or safe, but she'll procure 
Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard 

Of thoughts to watch and ward 
At th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind, 

That no strange or unkind lo 

Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy. 

Give knowledge instantly 
To wakeful reason, our affections' king : 

Who, in th' examining, 
Will quickly taste the treason, and commit 15 

Close, the close cause of it. 
'Tis the securest policy we have, 

To make our sense our slave. 
But this true course is not embraced by many : 

By many ? scarce by any. 20 

For either our affections do rebel, 

Or else the sentinel, 
That should ring larum to the heart, doth sleep : 

Or some great thought doth keep 
Back the intelligence, and falsely swears 25 

They 're base and idle fears 
Whereof the loyal conscience so complains. 

Thus, by these subtle trains, 



116 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Do several passions invade the mind, 

And strike our reason blind : 30 

Of which usurping rank, some have thought love 

The first, as prone to move 
Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests, 

In our inflamed breasts : 
But this doth from the cloud of error grow, 35 

Which thus we over-blow. 
The thing they here call Love is blind Desire, 

Armed with bow, shafts, and fire ; 
Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 't is born. 

Rough, swelling, like a storm ; 40 

With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear, 

And boils as if he were 
In a continual tempest. Now, true Love 

No such effects doth prove ; 
That is an essence far more gentle, fine, 45 

Pure, perfect, nay, divine ; 
It is a golden chain let down from heaven, 

Whose links are bright and even. 
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines 

The soft and sw^eetest minds 50 

In equal knots : this bears no brands nor darts, 

To murther different hearts. 
But in a calm and godlike unity 

Preserves community. 
O, who is he that in this peace enjoys 55 

Th' elixir of all joys ? 
A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers, 

And lasting as her flowers : 
Richer than Time, and as Time's virtue rare : 

Sober, as saddest care ; 60 

A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance : 

Who, blest with such high chance. 



BEN JONSON. 117 

Would, at suggestion of a steep desire, 

Cast himself from the spire 
Of all his happiness ? But soft, I hear 65 

Some vicious fool draw near. 
That cries we dream, and swears there 's no such thing 

As this chaste love we sing. 
Peace, Luxury, thou art like one of those 

Who, being at sea, suppose, 70 

Because they move, the continent doth so. 

No, Vice, we let thee know, 
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows' wings do fly, 

Turtles can chastely die. 
And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear) 75 

We do not number here 
Such spirits as are only continent 

Because lust's means are spent ; 
Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame. 

And for their place and name 80 

Cannot so safely sin. Their chastity 

Is mere necessity. 
Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience 

Have filled with abstinence : 
Though we acknowledge, who can so abstain 85 

Makes a most blessed gain ; 
He that for love of goodness hateth ill 

Is more crown-worthy still 
Than he, which for sin's penalty forbears: 

His heart sins, though he fears. 90 

But we propose a person like our Dove, 

Grac'd with a Phoenix' love ; 
A beauty of that clear and sparkling light, 

Would make a day of night. 
And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys : 95 

Whose od'rous breath destroys 



118 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

All taste of bitterness, and makes the air 

As sweet as she is fair. 
A body so harmoniously composed, 

As if nature disclosed loo 

All her best symmetry in that one feature ! 

O, so divine a creature, 
Who could be false to ? chiefly when he knows 

How only she bestows 
The wealthy treasure of her love on him ; 105 

Making his fortunes swim 
In the full flood of her admired perfection ? 

What savage, brute affection 
Would not be fearful to offend a dame 

Of this excelling frame ? ^^o 

Much more a noble and right generous mind 

To virtuous moods inclined. 
That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrain 

From thoughts of such a strain ; 
And to his sense object this sentence ever, "5 

'Man may securely sin, but safely never.' 



Thomas Campion, in Philip 
Rosseter's a Book of Airs, 
1601. 

IN IMAGINE PERTRANSIT HOMO. 

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow. 

Though thou be black as night. 

And she made all of light. 
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow. 

Follow her whose light thy light depriveth ; 

Though here thou livest disgraced. 

And she in heaven is placed. 
Yet follow her, whose light the world reviveth. 



THOMAS CAMP J ON. 119 

Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth, 

That so have scorched thee, lo 

As thou still black must be 

Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth. 

Follow her, while yet her glory shineth : 

There comes a luckless night, 

That will dim all her light ; 15 

And this the black unhappy shade divineth. 

Follow still, since so thy fates ordainbd ; 

The sun must have his shade. 

Till both at once do fade ; 
The sun still proved, the shadow still disdain^. 20 

OF CORINNA'S SINGING. 

When to her lute Corinna sings, 

Her voice revives the leaden strings. 

And doth in highest notes appear 

As any challenged echo clear : 

But when she doth of mourning speak, S 

E'en with her sighs the strings do break. 

And as her lute doth live or die, 

Led by her passion, so must I : 

For when of pleasure she doth sing. 

My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring ; 10 

But if she doth of sorrow speak. 

E'en from my heart the strings do break. 

THE CHALLENGE. 

Thou art not fair, for all thy red and white. 

For all those rosy ornaments in thee ; 
Thou art not sweet, though made of mere delight. 

Nor fair nor sweet, unless thou pity me. 



120 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I will not soothe thy fancies : thou shalt prove 
That beauty is no beauty without love. 

Yet love not me, nor seek thou to allure 

My thoughts with beauty, were it more divine . 

Thy smiles and kisses I cannot endure, 

I'll not be wrapt up in those arms of thine : 

Now show it, if thou be a woman right, — 

Embrace, and kiss, and love me, in despite. 

CONJURA TION. 

When thou must home to shades of underground, 
And there arrived, a new admired guest, 

The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round. 
White lope, blithe Helen, and the rest. 

To hear the stories of thy finished love 

From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move ; 

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, 

Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make. 

Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, 
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake : 

When thou hast told these honors done to thee, 

Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me. 



Philip Rosseter, in the same. 

ALL IS VANITY. 

Whether men do laugh or weep, 
Whether they do wake or sleep. 
Whether they die young or old. 
Whether they feel heat or cold ; 
There is underneath the sun 
Nothing in true earnest done. 



ROBERT JONES. 121 

All our pride is but a jest, 

None are worst, and none are best, 

Grief and joy, and hope and fear, 

Play their pageants everywhere : lo 

Vain opinion all doth sway, 

And the world is but a play. 

Powers above in clouds do sit. 

Mocking our poor apish wit ; 

That so lamely with such state 15 

Their high glory imitate. 

No ill can be felt but pain. 

And that happy men disdain. 



From Robert Jones' Second 
Book of Songs and Airs, 1 60 1. 

LOVE WINGED MY HOPES. 

Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly 
Far from base earth, but not to mount too high : 
For true pleasure 
Lives in measure, 
Which if men forsake, 5 

Blinded they into folly run and grief for pleasure take. 

But my vain hopes, proud of their new-taught flight, 
Enamoured sought to woo the sun's fair light, 
Whose rich brightness 

Moved their lightness 10 

To aspire so high 
That, all scorched and consumed with fire, now drowned 
in woe they lie. 



122 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

And none but Love their woeful hap did rue, 
For Love did know that their desires were true ; 

Though Fate frowned, 15 

And now drowned 
They in sorrow dwell, 
It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they 
fell. 

William Shakespeare, Twelfth 
Night, about 1601. 

O MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ARE YOU ROAMING? 

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? 
O, stay and hear, your true love's coming, 

That can sing both high and low : 
Trip no further, pretty sweeting. 
Journeys end in lovers meeting, 5 

Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love ? 't is not hereafter ; 
Present mirth hath present laughter ; 

What 's to come is still unsure : 
In delay there lies no plenty, 10 

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, 

Youth's a stuff will not endure. 

DIRGE OE LOVE. 

Come away, come away, death. 
And in sad cypress let me be laid ; 

Fly away, fly away, breath, 
I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 

My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 5 

O prepare it ! 
My part of death, no one so true 
Did share it. 



THOMAS MIDDLE TON. 123 

Not a flower, not a flower sweet 
On my black coflin let there be strown ; lo 

Not a friend, not a friend greet 
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown ; 
A thousand thousand sighs to save. 

Lay me, O, where 
Sad true lover never find my grave, ^5 

To weep there ! 



Thomas Middleton, Blurt, 
Master Constable, 1601-02. 

LIPS AND EVES. 

Love for such a cherry lip 

Would be glad to pawn his arrows ; 
Venus here to take a sip 

Would sell her doves and team of sparrows. 

But they shall not so ; 5 

Hey nonny, nonny no ! 
None but I this lip must owe ; 
Hey nonny, nonny no ! 

Did Jove see this wanton eye, 

Ganymede must wait no longer ; lo 

Phoebe here one night did lie. 

Would change her face and look much younger. 
But they shall not so ; 

Hey nonny, nonny no ! 
None but I this lip must owe ; iS 

Hey nonny, nonny no ! 



124 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Thomas Dekker, The A'oble 
Spanish Soldier, 1 634 ; per- 
formed 1602 (?). 

O, SORROW, SORROW. 

O, Sorrow, Sorrow, say where dost thou dwell ? 
In the lowest room of hell. 
Art thou born of human race ? 
No, no, I have a furier face. 
Art thou in city, town, or court? s 

I to every place resort. 
O, why into the world is Sorrow sent ? 
Men afflicted best repent. 
What dost thou feed on ? 

Broken sleep. 10 

What takest thou pleasure in ? 
To weep, 
To sigh, to sob, to pine, to groan, 
To wring my hands, to sit alone. 
O when, O when shall Sorrow quiet have } 15 

Never, never, never, never. 
Never till she finds a grave. 



Nicholas Breton, The Soul's 
Harmony, 1602. 

SONNET. 

THE soul's haven. 

The worldly prince doth in his sceptre hold 
A kind of heaven in his authorities ; 
The wealthy miser in his mass of gold 
Makes to his soul a kind of Paradise ; 



JOHN DONNE. 125 

The epicure that eats and drinks all day, 5 

Accounts no heaven but in his hellish routs ; 

And she whose beauty seems a sunny day, 

Makes up her heaven but in her baby's clouts. 

But, my sweet God, I seek no prince's power. 

No miser's wealth, nor beauty's fading gloss, lo 

Which pamper sin, whose sweets are inward sour, 

And sorry gains that breed the spirit's loss : 

No, my dear Lord, let my heaven only be 

In my love's service, but to live to thee. 



John Donne, in Davison's Po- 
etical Rhapsody^ 1602. 

ODE. 

That time and absence proves 
Rather helps than hurts to loves. 

Absence, hear thou my protestation 
Against thy strength, 
Distance and length: 
Do what thou canst for alteration, 

For hearts of truest mettle 
Absence doth join, and time doth settle. 

Who loves a mistress of such quality, 

He soon hath found 

Affection ground 
Beyond time, place, and all mortality. 

To hearts that cannot vary 
Absence is present, time doth tarry. 



126 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

My senses want their outward motions, 
Which now within 
Reason doth win, 
Redoubled in her secret notions : 

Like rich men that take pleasure 
In hiding more than handling treasure. 

By absence this good means I gain. 

That I can catch her, 

Where none can watch her, 

In some close corner of my brain : 

There I embrace and kiss her ; 

And so I both enjoy and miss her. 



Joshua Sylvester, in the same. 

SONNET. 

Were I as base as is the lowly plain. 
And you, my love, as high as heaven above. 
Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain, 
Ascend to heaven in honor of my love. 
Were I as high as heaven above the plain. 
And you, my love, as humble and as low 
As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should go. 
Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies. 
My love should shine on you like to the sun, 
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, 
Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. 
Wheresoe'er I am, below, or else above you, 
•VVheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you. 



BEN JONSON. 127 

From the same, authors un- 
known. 

MADRIGAL. 

My love in her attire doth show her wit, 

It doth so well become her : 
For every season she hath dressings fit, 

For winter, spring, and summer. 

No beauty she doth miss, 5 

When all her robes are on : 

But Beauty's self she is, 

When all her robes are gone. 

IN PRAISE OF TWO. 

Faustina hath the fairer face, 
And Phyllida the feater grace ; 

Both have mine eye enriched : 
This sings full sweetly with her voice ; 
Her fingers make as sweet a noise : \ 

Both have mine ear bewitched. 
Ah me ! sith Fates have so provided, 
My heart, alas, must be divided. 



Ben J on son, First Book of Epi- 
grams, 1616; written about 
1602. 

AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAW, 

A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL. 

Weep with me all you that read 

This little story ; 
And know for whom a tear you shed 

Death's self is sorry. 



128 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

'Twas a child that so did thrive 5 

In grace and feature, 
As heaven and nature seemed to strive 

Which owned the creature. 
Years he numbered scarce thirteen 

When Fates turned cruel, lo 

Yet three filled zodiacs had he been 

The stage's jewel ; 
And did act, what now we moan, 

Old men so duly, 
As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one, 15 

He played so truly. 
So, by error to his fate 

They all consented ; 
But viewing him since, alas too late, 

They have repented ; 20 

And have sought to give new birth, 

In baths to steep him ; 
But, being so much too good for earth, 

Heaven vows to keep him. 



William Shakespeare, Ham- 
let, 1603. 

HOW SHOULD I YOUR TRUE LOVE KNOWf 



How should I your true love know 

From another one ? 
By his cockle hat and staff, 

And his sandal shoon. 

He is dead, and gone, lady. 

He is dead and gone. 
At his head a grass-green turf, 

At his heels a stone. 



S//^ WALTER RALEIGH. Y19 

White his shroud as the mountain snow, 

Larded with sweet flowers, ^° 

Which bewept to the grave did go 
With true-love showers. 



Sir Walter Raleigh (?) in 
Daipkantus, 1604 ; written 
about 1 603. 

THE PASSIONATE MAN'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, 

My staff of faith to walk upon, 
My scrip of joy, immortal diet. 

My bottle of salvation, 
My gown of glory, hope's true gage ; 5 

And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. 

Blood must be my body's balmer. 

No other balm will there be given ; 
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, 

Travelleth towards the land of heaven ; 10 

Over the silver mountains. 
Where spring the nectar fountains : 
There will I kiss 
The bowl of bliss ; 
And drink mine everlasting fill ^5 

Upon every milken hill : 
My soul will be a-dry before ; 
But after, it will thirst no more. 
Then by that happy blestful day. 

More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, 20 

That have cast off their rags of clay, 
And walk apparelled fresh like me. 



130 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I'll take them first 

To quench their thirst 
And taste of nectar suckets, 25 

At those clear wells 

Where sweetness dwells 
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. 

And when our bottles and all we 

Are filled with immortality, 30 

Then the blessed paths we'll travel, 

Strowed with rubies thick as gravel ; 

Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors. 

High walls of coral, and pearly bowers. 

From thence to heaven's bribeless hall, 35 

Where no corrupted voices brawl ; 

No conscience molten into gold, 

No forged accuser bought or sold. 

No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey ; 

For there Christ is the King's Attorney, 4° 

Who pleads for all without degrees. 

And he hath angels, but no fees. 

And when the grand twelve-million jury 

Of our sins, with direful fury, 

'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, 45 

Christ pleads his death, and then we live. 

Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader, 

Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder ! 

Thou giv'st salvation even for alms ; 

Not with a bribed lawyer's palms. 5° 

And this is mine eternal plea 

To him that made heaven, earth, and sea, 

That, since my flesh must die so soon, 

And want a head to dine next noon. 



JOHX DOWLAXD. 131 

Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, 55 

Set on my soul an everlasting head. 

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit ; 

To tread those blest paths which before I writ. 



From John Dowland's Third 
and Last Book of Songs or 
Airs, 1603. 

LULLABY. 

Weep you no more, sad fountains, 

What need you flow so fast ? 
Look how the snowy mountains 

Heaven's sun doth gently waste. 
But my sun's heavenly eyes, 5 

View not your weeping, 
That now lies sleeping. 
Softly, now softly lies 
Sleeping. 

Sleep is a reconciling, 10 

A rest that peace begets ; 
Doth not the sun rise smiling 
When fair at ev'n he sets .'' 
Rest you, then, rest sad eyes. 

Melt not in weeping, '5 

While she lies sleeping, 
Softly, now softly lies 
Sleeping. 



132 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



From Thomas Bateson's First 
Set of English Madrigals, 1 604. 

SONG OF THE MAY. 

Sister, awake ! close not your eyes, 

The day her light discloses. 
And the bright morning doth arise 

Out of her bed of roses. 

See, the clear sun, the world's bright eye, 

In at our window peeping : 
Lo, how he blusheth to espy 

Us idle wenches sleeping. 

Therefore, awake ! make haste, I say. 

And let us, without staying, 
All in our gowns of green so gay 

Into the park a-maying. 



From Thomas Greaves' Songs 
of Sundry Kinds, 1 604. 

MADRIGAL. 

Ye bubbling springs that gentle music makes 

To lovers' plaints with heart-sore throbs immixed, 

Whenas my dear this way her pleasure takes, 
Tell her with tears how firm my love is fixed ; 

And, Philomel, report my timorous fears. 

And, Echo, sound my heigh-ho's in her ears : 

But if she asks if I for love will die, 

Tell her, 'Good faith, good faith, good faith, — not I.' 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 133 

William Shakespeare, Meas- 
ure for Measure, 1604. 

SONG. 

Take, O take those lips away, 

That so sweetly were forsworn ; 

And those eyes, the break of day, 

Lights that do mislead the morn : 

But my kisses bring again, 5 

Bring again. 
Seals of love, but sealed in vain. 

Sealed in vain. 



Ben Jon son, The Forest, 1616 ; 
written 1605. 

TO CELIA. 

Drink to me only with thine eyes, 

And I will pledge with mine ; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, 

And I'll not look for wine. 
The thirst that from the soul doth rise 5 

Doth ask a drink divine ; 
But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 

I would not change for thine. 

I sent thee late a rosy wreath. 

Not so much honoring thee 10 

As giving it a hope that there 

It could not withered be ; 
But thou thereon didst only breathe 

And sent'st it back to me ; 
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, 15 

Not of itself, but thee. 



134 ELIZABETH AX LYRICS. 



From Tobias Hume's The First 
Part of Airs French, Polish, 
and others together, 1605. 

IN LAUD EM A MORIS. 

Fain would I change that note 

To which fond love hath charmed me 

Long long to sing by rote, 

Fancying that that harmed me : 

Yet when this thought doth come, 5 

'Love is the perfect sum 

Of all delight,' 
I have no other choice 
Either for pen or voice 

To sing or write. 10 

Love ! they wrong thee much 
That say thy sweet is bitter, 
When thy rich fruit is such 

As nothing can be sweeter. 

Fair house of joy and bliss, 15 

Where truest pleasure is, 
I do adore thee: 

1 know thee what thou art, 
I serve thee with my heart, 

And fall before thee. 20 



THOMAS HEY WOOD. 135 



Thomas Heywood, The Rape 
of Luc7-ece, 1608 ; acted about 
1605 (?)• 

GOOD MORROW. 

Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day. 

With night we banish sorrow ; 
Sweet air blow soft, mount lark aloft. 

To give my love good-morrow. 
Wings from the wind to please her mind, 5 

Notes from the lark I'll borrow ; 
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing, 
" To give my love good-morrow ; 

To give my love good-morrow, 

Notes from them both I'll borrow. 10 

Wake from thy rest, robin-redbreast, 

Sing birds in every furrow ; 
And from each bill let music shrill 

Give my fair love good-morrow. 
Blackbird and thrush in every bush, 15 

Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow, 
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves 

Sing my fair love good-morrow ; 
To give my love good-morrow 
Sing birds in every furrow. 20 



136 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Michael Drayton, Certain 
Other Somiets in Poems, ed. 
1605. 

SONNET LXIIL 

TO THE LADY L. S. 

Bright star of beauty, on whose eye-lids sit 
A thousand nymph-like and enamoured graces, 
The goddesses of memory and wit, 
Which in due order take their several places ; 
In whose dear bosom, sweet, delicious Love 
Lays down his quiver, that he once did bear ; 
Since he that blessed paradise did prove, 
Forsook his mother's lap to sport him there. 
Let others strive to entertain with words. 
My soul is of another temper made ; 
I hold it vile that vulgar wit affords. 
Devouring time my faith shall not invade : 
Still let my praise be honored thus by you, 
Be you most worthy, whilst I be most true. 



Michael Drayton, Poems, 
Lyrics, and Pastoral, 160^ {i). 

ODE XII. 
AGINCOURT. 

TO MY FRIENDS THE CAMBER-BRITANS AND THEIR HARP. 

Fair stood the wind for France, 
When we our sails advance, 
And now to prove our chance 
Longer not tarry. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON. 137 

But put unto the main, 5 

At Caux, the mouth of Seine, 
With all his warlike train, 
Landed King Harry. 

And taking many a fort, 

Furnished in warlike sort, lo 

Coming toward Agin court 

In happy hour, 
Skirmishing day by day 
With those oppose his way. 
Whereas the gen'ral lay 15 

With all his power : 

Which in his height of pride, 
As Henry to deride, 
His ransom to provide 

Unto him sending ; 20 

Which he neglects the while, 
As from a nation vile, 
Yet with an angry smile. 

Their fall portending ; 

And, turning to his men, 25 

Quoth famous Henry then, 
' Though they to one be ten, 

Be not amazed ; 
Yet have we well begun. 

Battles so bravely won 30 

Evermore to the sun 

By fame are raised. 

*And for myself,' quoth he, 
*This my full rest shall be, 
England ne'er mourn for me, 35 

Nor more esteem me. 



138 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Victor I will remain, 

Or on this earth be slain, 

Never shall she sustain 

Loss to redeem me. 4© 

* Poyters and Cressy tell. 
When most their pride did swell, 
Under our swords they fell, 

No less our skill is 
Than when our grandsire great, 45 

Claiming the regal seat, 
In many a warlike feat 

Lopp'd the French lilies.' 

The Duke of York so dread, 

The eager vaward led ; 5° 

With the main Henry sped. 

Amongst his henchmen. 
Excester had the rear, 
A braver man not there, 
And now preparing were 55 

For the false Frenchmen, 

And ready to be gone. 
Armor on armor shone, 
Drum unto drum did groan. 

To hear was wonder ; 6o 

That with the cries they make 
The very earth did shake. 
Trumpet to trumpet spake, 

Thunder to thunder. 

Well it thine age became, 65 

O noble Erpingham, 
Thou didst the signal frame 
Unto the forces ; 



MICHAEL DRAYTON. 139 

When from a meadow by, 

Like a storm suddenly, 7° 

The English archery 

Stuck the French horses. 

The Spanish yew so strong. 

Arrows a cloth-yard long, 

That like to serpents stong, 75 

Piercing the wether ; 
None from his death now starts, 
But playing manly parts, 
And like true English hearts 

Stuck close together. 8o 

When down their bows they threw, 
And forth their bilbows drew. 
And on the French they flew: 

No man was tardy ; 
Arms from the shoulders sent, 85 

Scalps to the teeth were rent, 
Down the French peasants went, 

These were men hardy. 

When now that noble king, 

His broad sword brandishing, 9° 

Into the host did fling. 

As to o'erwhelm it ; 
Who many a deep wound lent. 
His arms with blood besprent. 
And many a cruel dent 95 

Bruised his helmet. 

Gloster, that duke so good. 
Next of the royal blood, 
For famous England stood, 

With his brave brother, 100 



140 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Clarence, in steel most bright. 
That yet a maiden knight, 
Yet in this furious fight 
Scarce such another. 

Warwick in blood did wade, 105 

Oxford the foes invade. 
And cruel slaughter made, 

Still as they ran up ; 
Suffolk his axe did ply, 

Beaumont and Willoughby 110 

Bare them right doughtily, 

Ferrers and Fanhope. 

On happy Crispin day 

Fought was this noble fray. 

Which fame did not delay 115 

To England to carry ; 
O when shall Englishmen, 
With such acts fill a pen ? 
Or England breed again 

Such a King Harry? 120 



Thomas Campion, in Richard 
Alison's An Hour's Recrea- 
tion in Music y 1 606. 

CHERRY RIPE. 

There is a garden in her face. 

Where roses and white lilies grow ; 

A heavenly paradise is that place, 
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow ; 

There cherries grow that none may buy, 

Till ' Cherry-Ripe ' themselves do cry. 



JOHN DANIEL. 141 

Those cherries fairly do enclose 

Of orient pearl a double row, 
Which when her lovely laughter shows, 

They look like rose-buds filled with snow: lo 

Yet them no peer nor prince may buy, 
Till ' Cherry-Ripe ' themselves do cry. 

Her eyes like angels watch them still ; 

Her brows like bended bows do stand, 
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill 15 

All that attempt with eye or hand 
Those sacred cherries to come nigh 
Till ' Cherry-Ripe ' themselves do cry. 



From John Daniel's Songs for 
the Lute, Viol and Voice, 1 606. 

IF I COULD SHUT THE GATE AGAINST MY 
THOUGHTS. 

If I could shut the gate against my thoughts, 
And keep out sorrow from this room within, 

Or memory could cancel all the notes 
Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin : 

How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie, 

Discharged of such a loathsome company. 

Or were there other rooms without my heart 
That did not to my conscience join so near, 

Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart, 
That I might not their clam'rous crying hear ; 

What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess, 

Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress, 



142 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But O my Saviour, who my refuge art, 

Let Thy dear mercies stand 'twixt them and me, 

And be the wall to separate my heart ^5 

So that I may at length repose me free ; 

That peace, and joy, and rest may be within, 

And I remain divided from my sin. 



John Donne, Poems, ed. 1635; 
Holy Sonnets, written before 
1607. 



SONNET X. 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ; 

For those whom thou think' st thou dost overthrow 

Die not, poor Death ; nor yet canst thou kill me. 

From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be, 

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow: 

And soonest our best men with thee do go. 

Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery. 

Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men. 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell. 

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, 

And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou, then ? 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, 

And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 143 



From The Fair Maid of the Ex- 
change,\(iOi\ author unknown. 

YE LITTLE BIRDS THA T SIT AND SING. 

Ye little birds that sit and sing 

Amidst the shady valleys, 
And see how Phyllis sweetly walks 

Within her garden-alleys ; 
Go, pretty birds, about her bower ; 5 

Sing, pretty birds, she may not lower; 
Ah, me ! methinks I see her frown, 
Ye pretty wantons, warble. 

Go, tell her through your chirping bills, 

As you by me are bidden, lo 

To her is only known my love, 
\\'hich from the world is hidden. 

Go, pretty birds, and tell her so ; 

See that your notes strain not too low, 

For still, methinks, I see her frown, 15 

Ye pretty wantons, warble. 

Go, tune your voices' harmony. 

And sing, I am her lover ; 
Strain loud and sweet, that every note 

With sweet content may move her : 20 

And she that hath the sweetest voice. 
Tell her I will not change my choice ; 
Yet still, methinks, I see her frown. 
Ye pretty wantons, warble. 

Oh, fly ! make haste ! see, see, she falls 25 

Into a pretty slumber ; 
Sing round about her rosy bed. 

That waking she may wonder. 



144 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Say to her, 't is her lover true 

That sendeth love to you, to you ; 30 

And when you hear her kind reply. 
Return with pleasant warblings. 



From Thomas Ford's Musk of 
Sundry Kinds, 1607. 

LOVE'S STEADFASTNESS. 
Since first I saw your face, I resolved to honor and renown 

ye, 

If now I be disdained, I wish my heart had never known ye. 
What ? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to 

wrangle ? 
No, no no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle. 

If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may 

forgive me, 5 

Or if my hands had strayed but a touch, then justly might 
you leave me. 

I asked you leave, you bade me love ; is 't now a time to 
chide me ? 

No, no no, I'll love you still, what fortune e'er betide me. 

The sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no 
beholder. 

And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes 

the bolder, 10 

Where beauty moves, and wit delights, and signs of kind- 
ness bind me. 

There, O there ! where'er I go, I'll leave my heart behind 
me. 



JOHN WEBSTER. 145 



John Webster, Vittoria Corom- 
bona, 1 612, acted 1 607-8. 

DIRGE. f-" 

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, 
Since o'er shady groves they hover, 
And with leaves and flowers do cover 
The friendless bodies of unburied men. 

Call unto his funeral dole 

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, 
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm. 
And, when gay tombs are robbed, sustain no harm; 
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men. 
For with his nails he'll dig them up again. 



William Shakespeare, Antony 
and Cleopatra, before 1608. 

TO BACCHUS. 

Come, thou monarch of the vine, 
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne ! 
In thy vats our cares be drowned. 
With thy grapes our hairs be crowned : 

Cup us till the world go round. 

Cup us till the world go round ! 



146 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



From Robert Jones' Ultimu?n 
VaUy or Third Book of Airs, 
1608. 

WHERE MY LADY KEEPS HER HEART. 

Sweet Love, my only treasure, 

For service long unfeigned. 

Wherein I naught have gained, 
Vouchsafe this little pleasure, 

To tell me in what part 5 

My lady keeps her heart. 

If in her hair so slender, 

Like golden nets entwined 

Which fire and art have fined, 
Her thrall my heart I render 10 

For ever to abide 

With locks so dainty tied. 

If in her eyes she bind it, 

Wherein that fire was framed 

By which it is enflamed, 15 

I dare not look to find it : 

I only wish it sight 

To see that pleasant light. 

But if her breast have deigned 

With kindness to receive it, 20 

I am content to leave it 
Though death thereby were gained : 

Then, lady, take your own 

That lives by you alone. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. I47 

William Shakespeare, Cym- 
be line, 1609. 

HARK, HARK! THE LARK. 

Hark, hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 
And Phoebus gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs 

On chaliced flowers that lies ; 
And winking mary-buds begin 5 

To ope their golden eyes ; 
With everything that pretty is, 
My lady sweet, arise ; 
Arise, arise. 

DIRGE. 

Fear no more the heat o' the sun 

Nor the furious winters' rages ; 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages : 
Golden lads and girls all must, 5 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown o' the great, 

Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ; 
Care no more to clothe and eat ; 

To thee the reed is as the oak: 10 

The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash, 

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ; 
Fear not slander, censure rash ; 15 

Thou hast finished joy and moan: 
All lovers young, all lovers must 
Consign to thee, and come to dust. 



148 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

No exerciser harm thee ! 

Nor no witchcraft harm thee ! 20 

Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! 

Nothing ill come near thee ! 

Quiet consummation have, 

And renowned be thy grave. 



Beaumont and Fletcher, The 
Maid^s Tragedy, 161 9; pro- 
duced about 1609. 

ASPATIA'S SONG. 

Lay a garland on my hearse 

Of the dismal yew; 
Maidens, willow branches bear ; 

Say, I died true. 

My love was false, but I was firm 

From my hour of birth ; 
Upon my buried body lie 

Lightly, gentle earth. 



From John Wilbye's Second 
Set of Madrigals, 1 609. 

ALL IN NAUGHT. 

I LIVE, and yet methinks I do not breathe ; 

I thirst and drink, I drink and thirst again ; 

I sleep and yet do dream I am awake ; 

I hope for that I have ; I have and want : 

I sing and sigh ; I love and hate at once. 

O, tell me, restless soul, what uncouth jar 

Doth cause in store such want, in peace such war .? 



THOMAS RAVENSCROFi: 149 



RISPOSTA. 

There is a jewel which no Indian mines 
Can buy, no chymic art can counterfeit ; 
It makes men rich in greatest poverty ; 
Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold. 
The homely whistle to sweet music's strain : 5 

Seldom it comes, to few from heaven sent, 
That much in little, all in naught, — content. 

LOVE NOT ME FOR COMELY GRACE. 

Love not me for comely grace. 

For my pleasing eye or face, 

Nor for any outward part : 

No, nor for a constant heart. 

For these may fail or turn to ill : 5 

So thou and I shall sever. 
Keep therefore a true woman's eye. 
And love me still, but know not why; 
So hast thou the same reason still 

To doat upon me ever. 10 



From Thomas Ravenscroft's 
Deuteromelia, 1609. 

THREE POOR MARINERS. 

We be three poor mariners, 

Newly come from the seas ; 
We spend our lives in jeopardy, 

While others live at ease. 



150 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Shall we go dance the round, the round, 
Shall we go dance the round ? 

And he that is a bully boy 

Come pledge me on this ground. 

We care not for those martial men 

That do our states disdain ; 
But we care for the merchant men 

Who do our states maintain : 
To them we dance this round, around, 

To them we dance this round ; 
And he that is a bully boy 

Come pledge me on this ground. 



Ben Jonson, The Masque of 
Queens, 1 609. 

VIRTUE TRIUMPHANT. 

Who, Virtue, can thy power forget 
That sees these live and triumph yet ? 
Th' Assyrian pomp, the Persian pride, 
Greeks' glory and the Romans' died ; 

And who yet imitate 
Their noises, tarry the same fate. 
Force greatness all the glorious ways 

You can, it soon decays ; 

But so good fame shall never : 
Her triumphs, as their causes, are forever. 



BEN J ON SON. 151 

r>EN JoNSON, llie Siloit Woman, 
1609-10. 

SIMPLEX MUNDirilS. 

Still to be neat, still to be drest, 

As you were going to a feast ; 

Still to be powdered, still perfumed : 

Lady, it is to be presumed, . 

Though art's hid causes are not found, 5 

All is not sweet, all is not sound. 

Give me a look, give me a face, 

That makes simplicity a grace ; 

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : 

Such sweet neglect more taketh me 10 

Than all th' adulteries of art ; 

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. 



From Robert Jones' The Muses' 
Garden of Delights, 1610. 

THE WOES OF LOVE. 

The sea hath many thousand sands, 

The sun hath motes as many ; 
The sky is full of stars, and love 

As full of woes as any : 
Believe me, that do know the elf. 
And make no trial by thyself. 

It is in truth a pretty toy 

For babes to play wdthal ; 
But O the honeys of our youth 

Are oft our age's gall ! 
Self-proof in time will make thee know 
He was a prophet told thee so : 



152 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

A prophet that, Cassandra-like, 

Tells truth without belief ; 
For headstrong youth will run his race, 

Although his goal be grief : 
Love's martyr, when his heat is past, 
Proves Care's confessor at the last. 

UNCERTAINTY. 

How many new years have grown old 
Since first your servant old was new ; 

How many long hours have I told 

Since first my love was vowed to you ; 

And yet, alas, she does not know 

Whether her servant love or no. 

How many walls as white as snow, 
And windows clear as any glass, 

Have I conjured to tell you so. 
Which faithfully performed was ; 

And 3^et you '11 swear you do not know 

Whether your servant love or no. 

How often hath my pale, lean face, 
With true characters of my love, 

Petitioned to you for grace. 

Whom neither sighs nor tears can move ; 

O cruel, yet do you not know 

Whether your servant love or no. 

And wanting oft a better token, 
I have been fain to send my heart. 

Which now your cold disdain hath broken, 
Nor can you heal't by any art : 

O look upon't, and you shall know 

Whether your servant love or no. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 153 

Beaumont and Fletcher, The 
Kriight of the Burning Pestle, 
1613; acted 1610. 

LUCE'S DIRGE. 

Come, you whose loves are dead, 

And, whiles I sing. 

Weep, and wring 
Every hand, and every head 
Bind with cypress and sad yew ; 5 

Ribbons black and candles blue 
For him that was of men most true. 

Come with heavy moaning. 

And on his grave 

Let him have 10 

Sacrifice of sighs and groaning ; 
Let him have fair flowers enow. 
White and purple, green and yellow. 
For him that was of men most true. 



Samuel Daniel, Tethys' Festi- 
val, 1 610. 

E IDOL A. 

Are they shadows that we see ? 

And can shadows pleasure give 1 
Pleasures only shadows be, 

Cast by bodies we conceive, 
And are made the things we deem 
In those figures which they seem. 



154 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But these pleasures vanish fast 
Which by shadows are expressed : 

Pleasures are not, if they last, 

In their passing is their best : lo 

Glory is most bright and gay 

In a flash, and so away. 

Feed apace then, greedy eyes, 

On the wonder you behold ; 
Take it sudden as it flies, 15 

Though you take it not to hold : 
When your eyes have done their part, 
Thought must length it in the heart. 



William Shakespeare, The 
Tempest, 161 1. 

A SEA DIRGE. 

Full fathom five thy father lies, 

Of his bones are coral made, 
Those are pearls that were his eyes : 

Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : 

Ding-dong, 
Hark ! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell. 

ARIEL'S SONG. 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I, 
In a cowslip's bell I lie, 
There I couch when owls do cry ; 
On the bat's back I do fly 



WILLIAM BYRD. ' 155 

After summer merrily. 5 

Merrily, merrily shall I live now 
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 



From William Byrd's Psalms, 
Sotigs a7td Sonnets, 1611. 

THE HOME OF CONTENT. 

In crystal towers and turrets richly set 

With glitt'ring gems that shine against the sun, 

In regal rooms of jasper and of jet, 

Content of mind not always likes to won ; 

But oftentimes it pleaseth her to stay 

In simple cotes enclosed with walls of clay. 

L O VE 'S IMMOR TA LI TV. 

Crowned with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis 
By Thyrsis sit, hard by a fount of crystal ; 

And with her hand, more white than snow or lilies. 
On sand she wrote, ' My faith shall be immortal ' : 

And suddenly a storm of wind and weather 

Blew all her faith and sand away together. 



Ben Jonson, The Forest, 161 6; 
written about 1611. 

WH\' I WRITE NOT OF LOVE. 

Some act of Love's bound to rehearse, 
I thought to bind him in my verse : 
Which when he felt, ' Away,' quoth he, 
' Can poets hope to fetter me .'' 



156 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

It is enough they once did get 
Mars and my mother in their net : 
I wear not these my wings in vain.' 
With which he fled me ; and again 
Into my rimes could ne'er be got 
By any art : then wonder not 
That since, my numbers are so cold, 
When Love is fled, and I grow old. 

SONG. 

THAT WOMEN ARE BUT MEN's SHADOWS. 

Follow a shadow, it still flies you. 
Seem to fly it, it will pursue ; 

So court a mistress, she denies you. 
Let her alone, she will court you. 

Say, are not women truly then 

Styled but the shadows of us men ? 

At morn and even, shades are longest • 
At noon, they are short or none ; 

So men at weakest, they are strongest, 
But grant us perfect, they're not known 

Say, are not women truly then 

Styled but the shadows of us men ? 



John Webster, The Duchess 
of Malji, 1623; acted about 
1612. 

DIRGE. 

Hark, now everything is still. 

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill 

Call upon our dame aloud, 

And bid her quickly don her shroud. 



JOHN WEBSTER. 157 

Much you had of land and rent ; 5 

Your length in clay's now competent : 

A long war disturbed your mind ; 

Here your perfect peace is signed. 

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping, 

Sin their conception, their birth weeping, lo 

Their life a general mist of error, 

Their death a hideous storm of terror ? 

Strew your hair with powders sweet, 

Don clean linen, bathe your feet, 

And — the foul fiend more to check — 15 

A crucifix let bless your neck : 

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day ; 

End your groan, and come away. 



From Wit Restored, 1658 ; writ- 
ten about 1 61 2 (?), author un- 
known. 

PHILLADA FLOUTS ME. 

O ! WHAT a pain is love. 

How shall I bear it ? 
She will inconstant prove, 

I greatly fear it. 
She so torments my mind, 

That my strength faileth, 
And wavers with the wind, 

As a ship that saileth. 
Please her the best I may. 
She loves still to gainsay : 
Alack and well a day ! 

Phillada flouts me. 



158 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

All the fair yesterday, 

She did pass by me ; 
She looked another way, 15 

And would not spy me. 
I wooed her for to dine, 

But could not get her. 
Will had her to the wine, — 

He might in treat her. 20 

With Daniel she did dance, 
On me she looked askance. 

thrice unhappy chance ! 

Phillada flouts me. 

Fair maid be not so coy, 25 

Do not disdain me : 

1 am my mother's joy, 

Sweet, entertain me. 
She'll give me when she dies 

All that is fitting, 30 

Her poultry and her bees 

And her geese sitting. 
A pair of mattress beds. 
And a bag full of shreds. 

And yet for all this goods, 35 

Phillada flouts me. 

She hath a clout of mine 

Wrought with blue Coventry, 
Which she keeps for a sign 

Of my fidelity. 40 

But i' faith, if she flinch, 

She shall not wear it ; 
To Tibb, my t'other wench, 

I mean to bear it. 



ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 159 

And yet it grieves my heart, 45 

So soon from her to part. 
Death strikes me with his dart ! 
Phillada flouts me. 

Thou shalt eat curds and cream, 

All the year lasting ; 5° 

And drink the crystal stream, 

Pleasant in tasting ; 
Whigge and whey whilst thou burst 

And ramble-berry ; 
Pie-lid and pasty-crust, 55 

Pears, plums and cherr3^ 
Thy raiment shall be thin. 
Made of a weaver's skin : 
Yet all's not worth a pin, 

Phillada flouts me. 6o 

Fair maidens have a care, 

And in time take me ; 
I can have those as fair, 

If you forsake me. 
For Doll, the dairy-maid, 65 

Laughed on me lately, 
And wanton Winifred 

Favors me greatly. 
One throws milk on my clothes. 
T'other plays with my nose ; 7° 

What wanton signs are those t 
Phillada flouts me. 

I cannot work and sleep 

All at a season ; 
Love wounds my heart so deep, 75 

Without all reason. 



160 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I gin to pine away, 

With grief and sorrow, 
Like to a fatted beast, 

Penned in a meadow. 80 

I shall be dead, I fear. 
Within this thousand year ; 
And all for very fear, 

Phillada flouts me. 



John Fletcher, The Two N'oble 
Kinsmen, 1634; written about 
1612. 

A BRIDAL SONG. 

Roses, their sharp spines being gone, 
Not royal in their smells alone, 

But in their hue ; 
Maiden pinks, of odor faint, 
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint. 

And sweet thyme true ; 

Primrose, first-born child of Ver, 
Merry spring-time's harbinger, 

With her bells dim ; 
Oxlips in their cradles growing, 
Marigolds on deathbeds blowing, 

Larks'-heels trim — 

All dear Nature's children sweet, 
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet. 

Blessing their sense ! 
Not an angel of the air. 
Bird melodious, or bird fair. 

Be absent hence ! 



ORLANDO GIBBONS. 161 

The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor 

The boding raven, nor chough hoar 20 

Nor chattering pie, 
May on our bride-house perch or sing, 
Or with them any discord bring. 

But from it fly. 



From Orlando Gibbons' First 
Set of Madrigals, 1 6 1 2 . 

FAIR IS THE ROSE. 

Fair is the rose, yet fades with heat or cold ; 
Sweet are the violets, yet soon grow old ; 
The lily's white, yet in one day 'tis done ; 
White is the snow, yet melts against the sun : 
So white, so sweet, was my fair mistress' face, 
Yet altered quite in one short hoiir's space : 
So short-lived beauty a vain gloss doth borrow, 
Breathing delight to-day but none to-morrow. 



Francis Beaumont, The Masque 
of the Inner Temple, 161 2-1 3. 

SONG FOR A DANCE. 

Shake off your heavy trance ! 

And leap into a dance 
Such as no mortals use to tread : 

Fit only for Apollo 
To play to, for the moon to lead, 

And all the stars to follow ! 



162 ELIZABETHAiX LYRICS. 

Thomas Heywood, Silver Age, 
before 1613. 

PRAISE OF CERES. 

With fair Ceres, Queen of Grain, 

The reaped fields we roam, 
Each country peasant, nymph and swain. 

Sing their harvest home ; 
Whilst the Queen of Plenty hallows 
Growing fields as well as fallows. 

Echo, double all our lays. 

Make the champians sound 
To the Queen of Harvest's praise. 

That sows and reaps our ground : 
Ceres, Queen of Plenty, hallows 
Growins: fields as well as fallows. 



John Fletcher, The Captain, 
1647, acted before 161 3. 

WHAT IS LOVE? 

Tell me, dearest, what is love 1 
'Tis a lightning from above ; 
'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire, 
'Tis a boy they call Desire. 

'Tis a grave. 

Gapes to have 
Those poor fools that long to prove. 

Tell me more, are women true ? 
Yes, some are, and some as you. 
Some are willing, some are strange. 
Since you men first taught to change. 



JOHN FLETCHER. 163 

And till troth 
Be in both, 
All shall love, to love anew. 

Tell me more yet, can they grieve ? 15 

Yes, and sicken sore, but live. 

And be wise, and delay, 

When you men are wise as they. 

Then I see, 

Faith will be, 20 

Never till they both believe. 



John Fletcher, The Nice Valor, 
performed about 16 13 (?). 

MELANCHOLY. 

Hence, all you vain delights. 
As short as are the nights 

Wherein you spend your folly : 
There's naught in this life sweet 
If man were wise to see't, S 

But only melancholy, 

O sweetest melancholy ! 

Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes, 

A sigh that piercing mortifies, 

A look that's fast'ned to the ground, *o 

A tongue chained up without a sound. 

Fountain heads, and pathless groves, 

Places which pale passion loves ; 

Moonlight walks, when all the fowls 

Are warmly housed, save bats and owls ; 15 



164 ELJZABErnAS LVKJCS. 

A midnight bell, a parting groan : 
These are the sounds we feed upon. 

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley ; 

Nothing 's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. 



William Shakespeare, King 
Henry VIII ; acted 1 613. 

ORPHEUS. 

Orpheus with his lute made trees, • 
And the mountain-tops that freeze. 

Bow themselves when he did sing : 
To his music plants and flowers 
Ever sprung ; as the sun and showers 

Thefe had made a lasting spring. 

Everything that heard him play, 
Even the billows of the sea, 

Hung their heads and then lay by. 
In sweet music is such art. 
Killing care and grief of heart 

Fall asleep, or, hearing, die. 



Thomas Campion, Two Books 
of Airs, about 161 3. 

A WAKE, A WAKE I THOU HE A VY SPRITE. 

Awake, awake ! thou heavy sprite 
That sleep'st the deadly sleep of sin ! 

Rise now and walk the ways of light ! 
'Tis not too late yet to begin. 

Seek heaven early, seek it late ; 

True Faith still finds an open gate. 



SAML'EL DAXIEL. 165 

Get up, get up, thou leaden man ! 

Thy track to endless joy or pain, 
Yields but the model of "a span ; 

Yet burns out thy life's lamp in vain. lo 

One minute bounds thy bane or bliss ; 
Then watch and labor while time is. 

SIC TRANSIT. 

COxME, cheerful day, part of my life to me : 

For while thou view'st me with thy fading light. 

Part of my life doth still depart with thee. 
And I still onward haste to my last night. 

Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly : 5 

So every day we live a day we die. 

But, O ye nights, ordained for barren rest. 
How are my days deprived of life in you, 

When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossessed 

By feigned death life sweetly to renew ! 10 

Part of my life in that you life deny : 

So every day we live a day we die. 



Samuel Daniel, Hytnen's Tri- 
U7nph, 1615; acted, 1613-14. 

SONG OF THE FIRST CHORUS. 

Love is a sickness full of woes. 

All remedies refusing ; 
A plant that with most cutting grows, 
Most barren with best using. 
Why so ? 
More we enjoy it, more it dies ; 
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, 
Heigh ho ! 



166 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Love is a torment of the mind, 

A tempest everlasting ; 
And Jove hath made it of a kind 
Not well, nor full, nor fasting. 
Why so ? 
More we enjoy it, more it dies ; 
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, 
Heigh ho ! 



Sir Henry Wottojn, printed 
with Overbury's Wife and 
Characters, 1614. 

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. 

How happy is he born and taught 

That serveth not another's will ; 
Whose armor is his honest thought 

And simple truth his utmost skill. 

Whose passions not his masters are, 5 

Whose soul is still prepared for death, 

Untied unto the world by care 

Of princes' grace, or vulgar breath ; 

Who envieth none whom chance doth raise 

Or vice; who never understood 10 

How deepest wounds are given by praise ; 
Nor rules of state, but rules of good ; 

Who hath his life from rumors freed, 
Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; 

Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 15 

Nor ruin make oppressors great ; 



WILLIAM BROWNE. 167 

Who God doth late and early pray 
More of his grace than gifts to lend ; 

And entertains the harmless day 

With a well-chosen book or friend. 20 

This man is free from servile bands 

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
Lord of himself, though not of lands. 

And having nothing, yet hath all. 



William Browne, The Inner 
Temple Masqtce., 161 4- 15. 

SONG OF THE SIREN. 

Steer hither, steer your winged pines, 

All beaten mariners. 
Here lie love's undiscovered mines, 

A prey to passengers ; 
Perfumes far sweeter than the best 5 

Which make the Phoenix' urn and nest. 

Fear not your ships, 
Nor any to oppose you save our lips. 

But come on shore. 
Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more. 10 

For swelling waves, our panting breasts, 

Where never storms arise. 
Exchange ; and be awhile our guests : 

For stars gaze on our eyes. 
The compass Love shall hourly sing, 15 

And, as he goes about the ring. 

We will not miss 
To tell each point he nameth with a kiss : 

Then come on shore, 
Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more. -o 



168 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



THE CHARM. 



Son of Erebus and Night, 
Hie away ; and aim thy flight, 
Where consort none other fowl 
Than the bat and sullen owl ; 
Where upon thy limber grass 
Poppy and mandragoras 
With like simples not a few 
Hang for ever drops of dew. 
Where flows Lethe without coil 
Softly like a stream of oil. 
Hie thee thither, gentle Sleep : 
With this Greek no longer keep. 
Thrice I charge thee by my wand, 
Thrice with moly from my hand 
Do I touch Ulysses' eyes. 
And with the jaspis: then arise 
Sagest Greek 



George Wither, Fidelia, i6i 5. 
SHALL /, WASTLNG LN DESPALR. 

Shall I, wasting in despair, 

Die because a woman 's fair ? 

Or make pale my cheeks with care 

'Cause another's rosy are? 

Be she fairer than the day 

Or the flow'ry meads in May — 

If she think not well of me 

What care I how fair she be ? 



GEORGE WITHER. 169 

Shall my seely heart be pined 

'Cause I see a woman kind ; ^° 

Or a well disposed nature 

Joined with a lovely feature ? 

Be she meeker, kinder than 

Turtle-dove or pelican, 

If she be not so to me *5 

What care I how kind she be ? 

Shall a woman's virtues move 

Me to perish for her love ? 

Or her well deservings known 

Make me quite forget mine own ? 20 

Be she with that goodness blest 

Which may gain her name of Best ; 

If she be not such to me. 

What care I how good she be ? 

'Cause her fortune seems too high, 25 

Shall I play the fool and die? 

She that bears a noble mind 

If not outward helps she find, 

Thinks what with them he would do, 

That without them dares her woo ; 3° 

And unless that mind I see. 

What care I how great she be ? 

Great, or good, or kind, or fair, 

I will ne'er the more despair ; 

If she love me, this believe, 35 

I will die ere she shall grieve ; 

If she slight me when I woo, 

I can scorn and let her go ; 

For if she be not for me. 

What care I for whom she be ? 4o 



170 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



Francis Beaumont, Poems, ed. 
1640; written before 1616. 

THE INDIFFERENT. 

Never more will I protest 
To love a woman but in jest : 
For as they cannot be true, 
So to give each man his due, 

When the wooing fit is past, 5 

Their affection cannot last. 

Therefore if I chance to meet 

With a mistress fair and sweet, 

She my service shall obtain, 

Loving her for love again : 10 

Thus much liberty I crave 

Not to be a constant slave. 

But when we have tried each other, 

If she better like another, 

Let her quickly change for me ; 15 

Then to change am I as free. 

He or she that loves too long 

Sell their freedom for a song. 

ON THE LIFE OF MAN. 

Like to the falling of a star, 

Or as the flights of eagles are. 

Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, 

Or silver drops of morning dew, 

Or like the wind that chafes the flood, 5 

Or bubbles which on water stood ; 

Even such is man, whose borrowed light 

Is straight called in and paid to-night. 



FRANCIS BEAUMONT. 171 

The wind blows out, the bubble dies, 

The spring entombed in autumn lies, lo. 

The dew 's dried up, the star is shot. 

The flight is past, and man forgot. 

Francis Beaumont, Foef?is, ed. 
1653; written before 1616. 

ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Mortality, behold and fear! 
What a change of flesh is here ! 
Think how many royal bones 
Sleep within this heap of stones ; 
Here they lie, had realms and lands, 5 

Who now want strength to stir their hands, 
Where from their pulpits sealed with dust 
They preach, ' In greatness is no trust.' 
Here 's an acre sown indeed 

With the richest, royall'st seed 10 

That the earth did e'er suck in 
Since the first man died for sin : 
Here the bones of birth have cried, 
' Though gods they were, as men they died ! ' 
Here are sands, ignoble things, 15 

Dropt from the ruined sides of kings : 
Here 's a world of pomp and state 
Buried in dust, once dead by fate. 



172 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 



John Fletcher, The Bloody 
Brother, acted about 1616. 

DRINK TO-DAY, AND DROWN ALL SORROW. 

Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow, 
You shall perhaps not do it to-morrow : 
Best, while you have it, use your breath ; 
There is no drinking after death. 

Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit. 
There is no cure 'gainst age but it : 
It helps the head-ache, cough, and tisic, 
And is for all diseases physic. 

Then let us swill, boys, for our health ; 
Who drinks well, loves the commonwealth. 
And he that will to bed go sober 
Falls with the leaf still in October. 



John Fletcher, Valentinian, 
acted about 1616. 

LOVE'S EMBLEMS. 

Now the lusty spring is seen ; 

Golden yellow, gaudy blue, 

Daintily invite the view. 
Everywhere on every green 
Roses blushing as they blow. 
And enticing men to pull, 
Lilies whiter than the snow 

Woodbines of sweet honey full : 

All love's emblems, and all cry, 

' Ladies, if not plucked we die.' 



JOHN FLETCHER. 173 

Yet the lusty spring hath stayed ; 

Blushing red and purest white 

Daintily to love invite 
Every woman, every maid. 
Cherries kissing as they grow, 15 

And inviting men to taste, 
Apples even ripe below, 

Winding gently to the waist : 

All love's emblems, and all cry, 

' Ladies, if not plucked we die.' 20 

CARE-CHARMING SLEEP, 

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 

Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 

On this afflicted prince ; fall like a cloud, 

In gentle showers ; give nothing that is loud. 

Or painful to his slumbers ; easy, light, 5 

And as a purling stream, thou son of Night 

Pass by his troubled senses ; sing his pain. 

Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain ; 

Into this prince gently, O gently slide. 

And kiss him into slumbers like a bride. 10 

GOD LYyEUS, EVER YOUNG. 

God Ly^us, ever young. 

Ever honored, ever sung. 

Stained with blood of lusty grapes, 

In a thousand lusty shapes. 

Dance upon the mazer's brim, 5 

In the crimson liquor swim ; 

From thy plenteous hand divine. 

Let a river run with wine : 

God of youth, let this day here 

Enter neither care nor fear. 10 



174 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



William Browne, Britannia's 
Pastorals, Book II, 1616. 

WHAT WIGHT HE LOVED. 

Shall I tell you whom I love ? 

Harken then awhile to me ; 
And if such a woman move, 

As I now shall versify, 
Be assured, 'tis she or none 5 

That I love, and love alone. 

Nature did her so much right 

As she scorns the help of art ; 
In as many virtues dight 

As e'er yet embraced a heart : 10 

So much good so truly tried, 
Some for less were deified. 

Wit she hath without desire 

To make known how much she hath ; 
And her anger flames no higher 15 

Than may fitly sweeten wrath. 
Full of pity as may be, 
Though, perhaps, not so to me. 

Reason masters every sense, 

And her virtues grace her birth, 20 

Lovely as all excellence. 

Modest in her most of mirth : 
Likelihood enough to prove 
Only worth could kindle love. 

Such she is : and, if you know 25 

Such a one as I have sung. 



WILLIAM BROWNE. 175 

Be she brown, or fair, or so 

That she be but somewhile young. 
Be assured, 'tis she, or none 
That I love, and love alone. 3° 

William V>y^o\<i^y., Poems ji om 
Lansdotvjie MS. 777, printed 
181 5; date uncertain. 

WELCOME, WELCOME, DO I SING. 

Welcome., welcome, do I sing, 
Far more ivekoine than the spring; 
He that parteth from you never 
Shall enjoy a spring forever. 

Love, that to the voice is near, 5 

Breaking from your ivory pale. 
Need not walk abroad to hear 
The delightful nightingale. 

Welcome, welcome, then I sing, 

Far more welcome than the spring ; 10 

He that parteth from you never, 

Shall enjoy a spring forever. 

Love, that looks still on your eyes. 

Though the winter have begun 
To benumb our arteries, iS 

Shall not want the summer's sun. 
Welcome, welcome, etc. 

Love, that still may see your cheeks, 

Where all rareness still reposes, 20 

Is a fool, if e'er he seeks 

Other lilies, other roses. 
Welcome, welcome, etc. 



176 ELIZABETH AX LYRICS. 

Love, to whom your soft lip yields, 

And perceives your breath in kissing, 25 

All the odors of the fields 

Never, never shall be missing. 
Welcome, welcome, etc. 

Love, that question would anew 

What fair Eden was of old, 30 

Let him rightly study you. 
And a brief of that behold. 

Welcome, welcome, then I sing, 

Far more welcome than the spring ; 

He that parteth from you never, 35 

Shall enjoy a spring forever. 

A ROUND. 

. All. 

Now that the spring hath filled our veins 

With kind and active fire, 
And made green liv'ries for the plains. 

And every grove a choir ; 

Sing we a song of merry glee, 5 

And Bacchus fill the bowl : 
I. Then here 's to thee ; 2. And thou to me 

And every thirsty soul. 

Nor care, nor sorrow ere paid debt, 

Nor never shall do mine ; 10 

I have no cradle going yet. 

Not I, by this good wine. 

No wife at home to send for me. 

No hogs are in my ground, 
No suit at law to pay a fee, 15 

Then round, old Jocky, round. 



/ / -ILL I A . U BK O WNE. 

All. 

Shear sheep that have them, cry we still, 
But see that no man scape 
To drink of the sherry, 
That makes us so merry, 
And plump as the lusty grape. 

William Browne, Caelia,Son- 
7iets, from the same MS. 

SOAWET III. 

Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry 
You took my hand to try if you could guess 
By lines therein, if any wight there be 
Ordained to make me know some happiness ; 
I wished that those characters could explain. 
Whom I will never wrong with hope to win ; 
Or that by them a copy might be ta'en, 
By you alone what thoughts I have within. 
But since the hand of Nature did not set — 
As providently loth to have it known — 
The means to find that hidden alphabet. 
Mine eyes shall be th' interpreters alone ; 
By them conceive my thoughts, and tell me, fair, 
If now you see her, that doth love me there ? 

William Browne, Visions, from 
the same. 

SONNET VI. 

Down in a valley, by a forest's side, 

Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves, 

I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride. 

As if the lilies grew to be his slaves ; 



178 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

The gentle daisy, with her silver crown, 5 

Worn in the breast of many a shepherd's lass, 

The humble violet, that lowly down 

Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass : 

Those, with a many more, methought, complained 

That Nature should those needless things produce, lo 

Which not alone the sun from others gained, 

But turn it wholly to their proper use : 

I could not choose but grieve, that Nature made 

So glorious flowers to live in such a shade. 

William Browne, from a MS. 
in the Library of Salisbury 
Cathedral; printed in 1894; 
date uncertain. 

SONNET. 

For her gait if she be walking. 
Be she sitting I desire her 
For her state's sake, and admire her 

For her wit if she be talking : 

Gait and state and wit approve her ; 5 

For which all and each I love her. 

Be she sullen, I commend her 

For a modest; be she merry 

For a kind one her prefer I : 
Briefly everything doth lend her 10 

So much grace and so approve her 

That for everything I love her. 



WILLIAM DRCMMOND. 179 



William Drummond, Poems, 
Amorous, Funeral, etc., Fart I., 
i6i6. 



SONNET. 



TO THE NIGHTINGALE. 



Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends, 

Ere that the blushing morn dare shew her light, 

Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends — 

Become all ear — stars stay to hear thy plight ; 

If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends. 

Who ne'er — not in a dream — did taste delight, 

May thee importune who like case pretends, 

And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite ; 

Tell me, — so may thou fortune milder try 

And long, long sing — for what thou thus complains, 

Sith winter's gone and sun in dappled sky 

Enamored smiles on woods and flowery plains ? 

The bird, as if my questions did her move. 

With trembling wings sighed forth, ' I love, I love ! ' 

MADRIGALS. 

SWEET ROSE, WHENCE IS THIS HUE? 

Sweet rose, whence is this hue 
Which doth all hues excel ? 
Whence this most fragrant smell ? 
And whence this form and gracing grace in you ? 
In fair Paestana's fields perhaps you grew, 

Or Hybla's hills you bred. 
Or odoriferous Enna's plains you fed, 
Or Tmolus, or where boar young Adon slew ; 



180 ELIZABETJIAX LYRICS. 

Or hath the Queen of Love you dyed of new 
In that dear blood, which makes you look so red ? lo 

No, none of those, but cause more high you blissed. 
My lady's breast you bore, her lips you kissed. 

I FEAR NOT HENCEFORTH DEATH. 

I FEAR not henceforth death, 
Sith after this departure yet I breathe ; 
Let rocks, and seas, and wind 
Their highest treasons show ; 
Let sky and earth combined 
Strive, if they can, to end my life and woe ; 
Sith grief cannot, me nothing can o'erthrow : 
Or if that aught can cause my fatal lot. 
It will be when I hear I am forgot. 

From the same, Part If, 1616. 
SONNET. 

Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs. 

Sweet Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train ; 

The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, 

The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs. 

Turn thou, sweet youth .? but ah ! my pleasant hours 5 

And happy days with thee come not again ; 

The sad memorials only of my pain 

Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours. 

Thou art the same which still thou wert before, 

Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair ; 10 

But she, whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air, 

Is gone ; nor gold, nor gems, can her restore. 

Neglected virtue, seasons go and come. 

While thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb. 



WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 181 

MADRIGAL. 

LIFE, A BUBBLE. 

This Life, which seems so fair, 
Is like a bubble blown up in the air 

By sporting children's breath, 

Who chase it everywhere 
And strive who can most motion it bequeath : 5 

And though it sometime seem of its own might, 
Like to an eye of gold, to be fixed there. 
And firm to hover in that empty height ; 
That only is because it is so light. 
But in that pomp it doth not long appear ; lo 

For when 'tis most admired, in a thought. 
Because it erst was naught, it turns to naught. 



SONNET. 

TO HIS LUTE. 

My lute, be as thou wert when thou did grow 

With thy green mother in some shady grove. 

When immelodious winds but made thee move. 

And birds their ramage did on thee bestow. 

Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve, 

Which wont in such harmonious strains to fiow. 

Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above. 

What art thou but a harbinger of woe ? 

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more. 

But orphans' wailings to the fainting ear. 

Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear 

For which be silent as in woods before. 

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign. 

Like widowed turtle, still her loss complain. 



182 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 



MADRIGAL. 

My thoughts hold mortal strife ; 

I do detest my life, 

And with lamenting cries 

Peace to my soul to bring 
Oft call that prince which here doth monarchize. 

But he grim grinning king, 
Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise, 
Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb, 
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come. 

William Drummond, Madri- 
gals and Epigrams, from the 
ed. 1656; date of writing un- 
certain. 

PHYLLIS. 

In petticoat of green. 
Her hair about her eyne, 
Phyllis beneath an oak 
Sat milking her fair flock : 
* Mongst that sweet-strained moisture, rare delight, 
Her hand seemed milk, in milk it was so white. 



Ben Jon son, Epigrams, 161 6 
date of writing unknown. 

EPITAPH ON ELLZABETH L. H. 

WouLDST thou hear what man can say 
In a little ? Reader, stay. 
Underneath this stone doth lie 
As much beauty as could die ; 



BEX JON SON. 183 

Which in life did harbor give 5 

To more virtue than doth live. 

If at all she had a fault 

Leave it buried in this vault. 

One name was Elizabeth, 

The other, let it sleep with death, lo 

Fitter, where it died, to tell, 

Than that it lived at all. Farewell. 



Ben Jonson, The Devil is an 
Ass, 1631, acted 1616. 

THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS. 

See the chariot at hand here of Love, 

Wherein my lady rideth ! 
Each that draws is a swan or a dove, 

And well the car Love guideth. 
As she goes, all hearts do duty 5 

Unto her beauty ; 
And, enamored, do wish, so they might 

But enjoy such a sight. 
That they still were to run by her side. 
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. 10 

Do but look on her eyes, they do light 

All that Love's world compriseth ! 
Do but look on her hair, it is bright 

As Love's star when it riseth ! 
Do but mark, her forehead smoother . 15 

Than words that soothe her ! 



184 ELJZABE J 11 A. \ ' L \ 'A'JCS. 

And from her arched brows such a grace 

Sheds itself through the face, 
As alone there triumphs to the life 
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. 20 

Have you seen but a bright lily grow 
Before rude hands have touched it ? 
Have you marked but the fall of snow 

Before the soil hath smutched it ? 
Have you felt the wool o' the beaver ? 25 

Or swan's down ever ? 
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier 

Or the nard i' the fire ? 
Or have tasted the bag o' the bee ? 
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she ! 3° 



Een J on son, The Vision of De- 
light, performed 161 7. 

SONG OF NIGHT. 

Break, Fant'sy, from thy cave of cloud 

And spread thy purple wings ; 
Now all thy figures are allowed, 

And various shapes of things : 
Create of airy forms a stream. 
It must have blood, but naught of fleam, 
And though it be a waking dream. 

Yet let it like an odor rise 
To all the senses here, 

And fall like sleep upon their eyes 
Or music in their ear. 



THOMAS CAMPION. 185 

Thomas Campion, Harleian 
MSS., before 1617. 

SONNET. 

THE CHARM. 

Thrice toss those oaken ashes in the air, 

And thrice three times tie up this true-love's knot ; 

Thrice sit you down in this enchanted chair, 

And murmur soft ' She will or she will not.' 

Go burn these poisoned weeds in that blue fire, 5 

This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, 

These screech owl's feathers, and this prickling briar, 

That all thy thorny cares an end may have. 

Then come, you fairies, dance with me a round : 

Dance in a circle, let my love be center ; 10 

Melodiously breathe out an enchanted sound, 

Melt her hard heart, that some remorse may enter. 

In vain are all the charms I can devise ; 

She hath an art to break them with her eyes. 



Thomas Campion, The Third 
Book of Airs, about 1 61 7. 

NOW WINTER NIGHTS ENLARGE. 

Now winter nights enlarge 

The number of their hours ; 
And clouds their storms discharge 

Upon the airy towers. 
Let now the chimneys blaze 

And cups o'erflow with wine. 
Let well-tuned words amaze 

With harmonv divine. 



186 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Now yellow waxen lights 
Shall wait on honey love, 
While youthful revels, masques and courtly sights, 
Sleep's leaden spells remove. 

This time doth well dispense 

With lovers' long discourse ; 
Much speech hath some defence, 

Though beauty no remorse. 
All do not all things well ; 

Some measures comely tread, 
Some knotted riddles tell, 

Some poems smoothly read. 
The summer hath his joys, 

And winter his delights ; 
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys 

They shorten tedious nights. 



SILLY BOY 'TIS FULL MOON YET. 

Silly boy ! 'tis full moon yet, thy night as day shines 

clearly ; 
Had thy youth but wit to fear, thou couldst not love so 

dearly. 
Shortly wilt thou mourn when all thy pleasures are 

bereaved. 
Little knows he how to love that never was deceived. 

This is thy first maiden flame, that triumphs yet unstained ; 5 
All is artless now you speak, not one word yet is feigned ; 
All is heaven that you behold, and all your thoughts are 

blessed ; 
But no spring can want his fall, each Troilus hath his 

Cressid. 



THOMAS CAMPION. 187 

Thy well-ordered locks ere long shall rudely hang neglected, 
And thy lively pleasant cheer read grief on earth dejected ; lo 
Much then wilt thou blame thy saint, that made thy heart 

so holy, 
And with sighs confess, in love that too much faith is 

folly. 

Yet be just and constant still, Love may beget a wonder, 
Not unlike a summer's frost, or winter's fatal thunder : 
He that holds his sweetheart true unto his day of dying, 15 
Lives, of all that ever breathed, most worthy the envying. 



Thomas Campion, Fourth Book 
of Airs, about 1617. 

TRUE LOVE WILL YET BE FREE. 

Turn all thy thoughts to eyes, 

Turn all thy hairs to ears, 

Change all thy friends to spies, 

And all thy joys to fears ; 

True love will yet be free 5 

In spite of jealousy. 

Turn darkness into day, 
Conjectures into truth, 
Believe what th' envious say, 

Let age interpret youth : 10 

True love will yet be free 
In spite of jealousy. 

Wrest every word and look. 

Rack every hidden thought, 
Or fish with golden hook ; 15 



188 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

True love cannot be caught : 
For that will still be free 
In spite of jealousy. 



Sir Walter Raleigh, printed 
with his Prerogative of Parlta- 
rneuts, 1628; written 1618. 

EVEN SUCH IS TIME. 

Even such is time, that takes on trust 
Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 

And pays us but with earth and dust ; 
Who, in the dark and silent grave, 

When we have wandered all our ways, 

Shuts up the story of our days ; 

But from this earth, this grave, this dust 

My God shall raise me up, I trust ! 



Sir Walter Raleigh (?) fn 
Walton's Complete Angler, 
ed. 1653 ; date uncertain. 

A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD. 

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ! 
Farewell, ye honored rags, ye glorious bubbles ! 
Fame's but a hollow echo ; gold, pure clay ; 
Honor, the darling but of one short day ; 
Beauty — th' eye's idol — but a damasked skin ; 5 

State, but a golden prison to live in 
And torture free-born minds ; embroidered trains, 
but pageants for proud swelling veins ; 



SIR WAL TER RALEIGH (.?). 189 

And blood allied to greatness, is alone 
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own : lo 

Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth 
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. 

I would be great, but that the sun doth still 

Level his rays against the rising hill ; 

I would be high, but see the proudest oak 15 

Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke ; 

I would be rich, but see men, too unkind, 

Dig in the bowels of the richest mind ; 

I would be wise, but that I often see 

The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free ; 20 

I would be fair, but see the fair and proud. 

Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud ; 

I would be poor, but know the humble grass 

Still trampled on by each unworthy ass : 

Rich, hated ; wise, suspected ; scorned, if poor , 25 

Great, feared ; fair, tempted ; high, still envied more ; 

I have wished all, but now I wish for neither ; 

Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair, poor I'll be rather. 

Would the World now adopt me for her heir. 

Would beauty's queen entitle me the fair, 30 

Fame speak me Fortune's minion, could I vie 

Angels with India, with a speaking eye 

Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike Justice dumb 

As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue 

To stones by epitaphs, be called great master 35 

In the loose rimes of every poetaster ; 

Could I be more than any man that lives, 

Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives ; 

Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, 

Than ever Fortune would have made them mine ; 40 

And hold one minute of this holy leisure 

Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 



190 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Welcome, pure thoughts ! welcome, ye silent groves ! 

These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves : 

Now the winged people of the sky shall sing 45 

My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring ; 

A pray'r-book now shall be my looking-glass, 

In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face. 

Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, 

No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears, 5° 

Then here I'll sit and sigh my hot love's folly, 

And learn to affect an holy melancholy ; 

And if contentment be a stranger then 

I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again. 



From Thomas Bateson's Second 
Set of Madrigals, i6i8. 

CAM ELLA. 

Camella fair tripped o'er the plain, 

I followed quickly after ; 
Have overtaken her I would fain, 

And kissed her when I caught her. 
But hope being passed her to obtain, 

' Camella ! ' loud I call : 
She answered me with great disdain, 

' I will not kiss at all.' 

WILLING BONDAGE. 

Her hair the net of golden wire. 

Wherein my heart, led by my wandering eyes 
So fast entangled is that in no wise 

It can, nor will, again retire ; 

But rather will in that sweet bondage die 
Than break one hair to gain her liberty. 



JOHN FLETCHER. 191 

John Fletcher, The Mad 
Lover ^ 1647 ; acted before 
1618-19. 

LOVE'S SACRIFICE. 

Go, happy heart ! for thou shalt lie 
Intombed in her for whom I die, 
Example of her cruelty. 

Tell her, if she chance to chide 

Me for slowness, in her pride, 5 

That it was for her I died. 

If a tear escape her eye, 
'Tis not for my memory, 
But thy rites of obsequy. 

The altar was my loving breast, 10 

My heart the sacrificed beast, 
And I was myself the priest. 

Your body was the sacred shrine. 

Your cruel mind the power divine, 

Pleased with hearts of men, not kine. 15 

HYMN TO VENUS. 

O, FAIR sweet goddess. Queen of loves. 

Soft and gentle as thy doves, 

Humble-eyed, and ever ruing 

Those poor hearts their loves pursuing ! 

O, thou mother of delights, 5 

Crowner of all happy nights, 

Star of dear content and pleasure, 

Of mutual loves and endless treasure ! 

Accept this sacrifice we bring, 

Thou continual youth and spring ; 10 

Grant this lady her desires. 

And every hour we'll crown thy fires. 



192 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Ben Jonson, Underwoods, 
1640; written before 161 9. 

A NYMPH'S PASSION. 

I LOVE and he loves me again, 

Yet dare I not tell who ; 
For if the nymphs should know my swain, 
I fear they'd love him too ; 

Yet if he be not known, 5 

The pleasure is as good as none. 
For that's a narrow joy is but our own. 

ril tell, that if they be not glad, 

They may yet envy me ; 
But then if I grow jealous mad 10 

And of them pitied be, 

It were a plague 'bove scorn ; 
And yet it cannot be forborne 
Unless my heart would, as my thought be torn. 

He is, if they can find him, fair 15 

And fresh and fragrant too, 
As summer's sky or purged air. 
And looks as lilies do 

That are this morning blown : 
Yet, yet I doubt he is not known, 20 

And fear much more that more of him be shown. 

But he hath eyes so round and bright, 

As make away my doubt, 
Where Love may all his torches light, 

Though Hate had put them out ; 25 

But then t' increase my fears 
What nymph soe'er his voice but hears 
Will be my rival, though she have but ears. 



BEN JONSVN. 193 

I'll tell no more, and yet I love, 

Arid he loves me ; yet no 30 

One unbecoming thought doth move 
From either heart I know ; 

But so exempt from blame 
As it would be to each a fame, 
If love or fear would let me tell his name. 35 



THE HOUR-GLASS. 

Do but consider this small dust. 
Here running in the glass, 

By atoms moved ; 
Could you believe that this 

The body was 

Of one that loved ? 
And in his mistress' flame playing like a fly 
Turned to cinders by her eye ? 
Yes, and in death, as life unblest 

To have 't expressed : 
Even ashes of lovers find no rest. 



THE DREAM. 

Or scorn or pity on me take, 
I must the true relation make, 

I am undone to-night ; 
Love, in a subtile dream disguised. 

Hath both my heart and me surprised, 
Whom never yet he durst attempt awake 
Nor will he tell me for whose sake 
He did me the delight 
Or spite ; 



194 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

But leaves me to enquire lo 

In all my wild desire 
Of Sleep again who was his aid. 
And Sleep ['s] so guilty and afraid 
As since he dares not come within my sight. 

Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd^ 
1641 ; date of writing uncer- 
tain. 

jEGLamouk's lament. 

Here she was wont to go, and here, and here ! 

Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow : 

The world may find the spring by following her ; 

For other print her airy steps ne'er left : 

Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, 5 

Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk ; 

But like the soft west-wind she shot along ; 

And where she went, the flowers took thickest root 

As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. 



Michael Drayton, Poems Col- 
lected^ etc., folio ed. of 161 9. 

SONNET LXL 

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, 
Nay I have done, you get no more of me ; 
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, 
That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; 
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
And when we meet at any time again. 
Be it not seen in either of our brows 
That we one jot of former love retain. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON, 195 

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 

When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, lo 

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death. 

And Innocence is closing up his eyes : 

Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, 

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. 



THE CRIER. 

Good folk, for gold or hire. 

But help me to a crier ; 

For my poor heart is run astray 

After two eyes that passed this way. 

O yes, O yes, O yes, 

If there be any man 

In town or country can 

Bring me my heart again, 

I'll please him for his pain. 
And by these marks I will you show 
That only I this heart do owe : 

It is a wounded heart, 

Wherein yet sticks the dart ; 
Every piece sore hurt throughout it ; 
Faith and troth writ round about it. 
It was a tame heart and a dear. 

And never used to roam ; 
But, having got this haunt, I fear 

'Twill hardly stay at home. 
For God's sake, walking by the way, 

If you my heart do see. 
Either impound it for a stray, 

Or send it back to me. 



196 ELIZABETH AX LYRICS. 



CANZONET. 



TO HIS COY LOVE, 



I PRAY thee leave, love me no more, 

Call home the heart you gave me, 
I but in vain that saint adore, 

That can, but will not save me. 
These poor half-kisses kill me quite 5 

Was ever man thus served? 
Amidst an ocean of delight 

For pleasure to be sterved. 

Show me no more those snowy breasts. 

With azure riverets branched, 10 

Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts, 

Yet is my thirst not staunched. 
O, Tantalus ! thy pains ne'er tell. 

By me thou art prevented ; 
'Tis nothing to be plagued in hell, 15 

But thus in heaven tormented ! 

Clip me no more in those dear arms, 

Nor thy life's comfort call me, 
O these are but too powerful charms, 

And do but more enthrall me. 20 

But see how patient I am grown 

In all this coil about thee ; 
Come, nice thing, let thy heart alone, 

I cannot live without thee. 



THOMAS VAUTOR. 197 



From Thomas Vautor's Songs 
of Divers Airs and N'atures, 
1619. 

SWEET SUFFOLK OWL. 

Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight 
With feathers, like a lady bright. 
Thou sing'st alone, sitting by night, 

Te whit, te whoo ! 
Thy note that forth so freely rolls. 
With shrill command the mouse controls. 
And sings a dirge for dying souls, 

Te whit, te whoo ! 



From Martin Peerson's Pri- 
vate Music, 1620. 

LULL. A BY. 

Upon my lap my sov'reign sits 
And sucks upon my breast ; 
Meantime his love maintains my life 
And gives my sense her rest. 
Sing lullaby, my little boy. 
Sing lullaby, mine only joy. 

When thou hast taken thy repast, 

Repose, my babe, on me ; 
So may thy mother and thy nurse 
Thy cradle also be. 

Sing lullaby, my little boy, 
Sing lullaby, mine only joy. 



198 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

I grieve that duty doth not work 

All that my wishing would, 
Because I would not be to thee 15 

But in the best I should. 
Sing lullaby, my little boy. 
Sing lullaby, mine only joy. 

Yet as I am, and as I may, 

I must and will be thine, 20 

Though all too little for thyself 
Vouchsafing to be mine. 
Sing lullaby, my little boy. 
Sing lullaby, mine only joy. " 

THE RETORT COURTEOUS. 

* Open the door ! Who's there within t 
The fairest of thy mother's kin } 

come, come, come abroad 
And hear the shrill birds sing, 

The air with tunes that load. 5 

It is too soon to go to rest. 
The sun not midway yet to west: 

The day doth miss thee. 
And will not part until it kiss thee.' 

' Were I as fair as you pretend, 10 

Yet to an unknown seld-seen friend 

1 dare not ope the door : 
To hear the sweet birds sing 
Oft proves a dangerous thing. 

The sun may run his wonted race 15 

And yet not gaze on my poor face ; 

The day may miss me : 
Therefore depart, you shall not kiss me.' 



JOHN FLETCHER. 199 

John Fletcher, Women Pleased, 
1647; acted about 1620. 

A WOMAN WILL HA VE HER WILL, 
Question. 

Tell me, what is that only thing 

For which all women long ; 
Yet, having what they most desire, 

To have it does them wrong ? 

Answer. 

'Tis not to be chaste, nor fair, — 5 

Such gifts malice may impair — 

Richly trimmed, to walk and ride, 

Or to wanton unespied ; 

To preserve an honest name, 

And so to give it up to fame ; 10 

These are toys. In good or ill 

They desire to have their will ; 

Yet, when they have it, they abuse it. 

For they know not how to use it. 



From Christ Church MS., printed 
in 1888 ; date and author un- 
known. 

A DIALOGUE. 

Art thou that she than whom no fairer is .? 
Art thou that she desire so strives to kiss ? ' 
' Say I am, how then ? 
Maids may not kiss 
Such wanton-humored men.' 



200 ELIZABETHAX LYRICS. 

Art thou that she the world commends for wit ? 
Art thou so wise and mak'st no use of it ? ' 
' Say I am, how then ? 
My wit doth teach me shun 
Such foolish, foolish men.' lo 



Sir Henry Wotton, in Michael 
Este's Sixth Set of Books, etc., 
1624 ; written about 1620. 

ON HIS MISTRESS, ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA. 

You meaner beauties of the night, 
That poorly satisfy our eyes 

More by your number than your light, 
You common people of the skies, — 
What are you when the moon shall rise ? 

You curious chanters of the wood, 

That warble forth Dame Nature's lays. 

Thinking your passions understood 

By your weak accents, what's your praise. 
When Philomel her voice shall raise ? 

You violets that first appear, 

By your pure purple mantles known 

Like the proud virgins of the year. 

As if the spring were all your own. 
What are you when the rose is blown ? 

So, when my mistress shall be seen 
In form and beauty of her mind, 

By virtue first, then choice, a queen. 
Tell me if she were not designed 
The eclipse and glory of her kind ? 



WILLIAM BROWNE. 201 



William Browne, in Osborne's 
Memoirs of the Reign of King 
fafnes, 1658; written after 1621. 



EPITAPH. 

ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 

Underneath this sable hearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother : 
Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
Fair, and learned, and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

Marble piles let no man raise 
To her name : in after days, 
Some kind woman born as she, 
Reading this, like Niobe 
Shall turn marble, and become 
Both her mourner and her tomb. 



George Wither, The Mistress 
of PhiT arete, 1622. 

SONNET II. 

HENCE AWAY, YOU SIRENS. 

Hence away, you Sirens, leave me. 
And unclasp your wanton arms ; 
Sug'red words shall ne'er deceive me 
Though you prove a thousand charms. 
Fie, fie, forbear ; 
No common snare 



202 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Could ever my affection chain ; 

Your painted baits 

And poor deceits 
Are all bestowed on me in vain. lo 

I'm no slave to such as you be ; 
Neither shall a snowy breast, 
Wanton eye, or lip of ruby 
Ever rob me of my rest ; 

Go, go, display 15 

Your beauty's ray 
To some o'ersoon enamored swain : 

Those common wiles 

Of sighs and smiles 
Are all bestowed on me in vain. 20 

I have elsewhere vowed a duty ; 

Turn away your tempting eyes, 
Show not me a naked beauty. 
Those impostures I despise ; 

My spirit loathes 25 

Where gaudy clothes 
And feigned oaths may love obtain : 
I love her so 
Whose look swears no^ 
That all your labors will be vain. 3° 

Can he prize the tainted posies 

Which on every breast are worn. 
That may pluck the spotless roses 
From their never-touched thorn t 

I can go rest 35 

On her sweet breast 
That is the pride of Cynthia's train ; 



GEORGE WITHER. 203 

Then stay your tongues, 
Your mermaid songs 
Are all bestowed on me in vain. 40 

He's a fool that basely dallies 

Where each peasant mates with him ; 
Shall I haunt the thronged vallies, 
Whilst there 's noble hills to climb ? 

No, no, though clowns 45 

Are scared with frowns, 
I know the best can but disdain : 

And those I'll prove. 

So shall your love 
Be all bestowed on me in vain. 5° 

Yet I would not deign embraces 

With the greatest-fairest she. 
If another shared those graces 
Which had been bestowed on me. 

I gave that one 55 

My love, where none 
Shall come to rob me of my gain. 
Your fickle hearts 
Makes tears, and arts 
And all, bestowed on me in vain. 60 

I do scorn to vow a duty 

Where each lustful lad may woo ; 
Give me her, whose sun-like beauty 
Buzzards dare not soar unto : 

She, she it is 65 

Affords that bliss. 
For which I would refuse no pain ; 

But such as you, 

Fond fools, adieu. 
You seek to captive me in vain. 70 



204 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Proud she seemed in the beginning 

And disdained my looking on, 

But that coy one in the winning, 

Proves a true one, being won. 

Whate'er betide 75 

She'll ne'er divide 
The favor she to me shall deign ; 
But your fond love 
Will fickle prove, 
And all that trust in you are vain. 80 

Therefore know, when I enjoy one. 

And for love employ my breath. 
She I court shall be a coy one 
Though I win her with my death. 

A favor there 85 

Few^ aim at dare ; 
And if, perhaps, some lover plain ; 
She is not won 
Nor I undone 
By placing of my love in vain. 90 

Leave me, then, you Sirens, leave me. 

Seek no more to work my harms. 
Crafty wiles cannot deceive me. 

Who am proof against your charms : 

You labor may 95 

To lead astray 
The heart that constant shall remain ; 
And I the while 
Will sit and smile 
To see you spend your time in vain. 100 



WILLIAM DRUMMOKD. 205 

William Urummond, Flowers 
of Sion, 1623. 

SONNETS. 

FOR THE -MAGDALENE. 

' These eyes, dear Lord, once brandons of desire, 

Frail scouts betraying what they had to keep. 

Which their own heart, then others set on fire. 

Their traitorous black before thee here out-weep ; 

These locks, of blushing deeds the gilt attire, 5 

Waves curling, wrackful shelves to shadow deep, 

Rings wedding souls to sin's lethargic sleep, 

To touch thy sacred feet do now aspire. 

In seas of care behold a sinking bark, 

By winds of sharp remorse unto thee driven, 10 

O let me not be Ruin's aim'd-at mark ! 

My faults confessed. Lord, say they are forgiven.' 

Thus sighed to Jesus the Bethanian fair. 

His tear-wet feet still drying with her hair. 

THE BOOK OF THE WORLD. 

Of this fair volume which we World do name 

If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care. 

Of him who it corrects, and did it frame, 

We clear might read the art and wisdom rare. 

Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, 5 

His providence extending everywhere. 

His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, 

In every page, no period of the same : ^r 

But silly we, like foolish children, rest 

Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold, 10 

Fair dangling ribbands, leaving what is best. 

On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold ; 



206 ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught, 
It is some picture in the margin wrought. 

MADRIGAL. 

THE WORLD, A HUNTING. 

This world a hunting is, 
The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death ; 

His speedy greyhounds are 

Lust, sickness, envy, care, 

Strife that ne'er falls amiss. 
With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe. 

Now, if by chance we fly 

Of these the eager chase, 

Old Age with stealing pace 
Casts on his nets, and there we panting die. 



Francis Bacon, from Reliquiae 
IVottonianae, 1651 ; written 
about 1625. 

THE WORLD. 

The world's a bubble, and the life of man 

Less than a span ; 
In his conception wretched, from the womb 

So to the tomb ; 
Cursed from his cradle, and brought up to years 

With cares and fears. 
Who then to frail mortality shall trust. 
But limns on water, or but writes in dust. 

Yet, whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, 

What life is best ? 
Courts are but only superficial schools 

To dandle fools ; 



FRANCIS BACON. 207 

The rural part is turned into a den 

Of savage men ; 
And Where's a city from foul vice so free, 15 

But may be termed the worst of all the three ? 

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, 

Or pains his head : 
Those that live single, take it for a curse, 

Or do things worse : 20 

These would have children : those that have them moan, 

Or wish them gone : 
What is it, then, to have, or have no wife. 
But single thraldom, or a double strife ? 

Our own affections still at home to please 25 

Is a disease : 
To cross the seas to any foreign soil. 

Peril and toil : 
Wars with their noise affright us, when they cease, 

We are worse in peace ; 3° 

What then remains, but that we still should cry 
For being born, or, being born, to die ? 



From Christ Chtirch MS., printed 
in 1888 ; date and author un- 
known. 

GUESTS. 

Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord 

Should of his own accord 

Friendly himself invite. 
And say ' I'll be your guest to-morrow night,' 
How should we stir ourselves, call and command 
All hands to work ! ' Let no man idle stand. 



20S ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. 

Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall, 

See they be fitted all ; 

Let there be room to eat, 
And order taken that there want no meat. lo 

See every sconce and candlestick made bright. 
That without tapers they may give a light. 

Look to the presence : are the carpets spread, 

The dazie o'er the head, 

The cushions in the chairs, '5 

And all the candles lighted on the stairs t 
Perfume the chambers, and in any case 
Let each man give attendance in his place.' 

Thus if the king were coming would we do, 

And 'twere good reason too ; 20 

For 'tis a duteous thing 

To show all honor to an earthly king, 

And after all our travail and our cost, 

So he be pleased, to think no labor lost. 

But at the coming of the King of Heaven 25 

All's set at six and seven : 

We wallow in our sin, 
Christ can not find a chamber in the inn. 
We entertain him always like a stranger. 
And, as at first, still lodge him in the manger. 3° 



:;& 



NOTES, 



NOTES, 



1. George Gascoigne is the most considerable figure in English 
poetry between Surrey and Sidney. A courtier, a soldier, and a poet, 
his work is notable for his many trials of paths before him untrod by 
English writers. See the editor's monograph on Gascoigtie, Publications 
of the University of Pennsylvania, Series in Philology, Literature and 
Archaeology, II, No. 4. Gascoigne was step-father to Nicholas Breton, 
whose literary career may have been determined by the older poet's 
precept and example. Sir Walter Raleigh's earliest avowed verses, too, 
are those prefixed to The Steele Glas. It is by this excellent satire that 
Gascoigne is most deservedly remembered, although much of his verse 
and prose is worthy of attention. The "novel "in the Italian manner, 
from which this sonnet is taken, is the earliest specimen of its class 
in English. The text is from Hazlitt's ed., 1869. 

1 9. Frojit. Forehead. 

1. The Strange Passion. The Posies of George Gascoigne, Esquire, 
is the title of the second collected ed. of his works. The matter is 
fancifully arranged under the headings : Flowers, Herbs, and Weeds. 
This poem represents Gascoigne's love poetry at its best. Its fervor, 
directness, smoothness, and somewhat excessive alliteration are all 
characteristic of Gascoigne's poetry in general. 

1 1. Bale. Sorrow. 

2 7. Lust. Pleasure, delight ; cf. 19 l : " the light of human lust.'' 
2 16. Grutch. Pain, grief ; a by-form of grudge. 

2 28, 29. Wray and bewray. Reveal. 

3. Pilgrim to Pilgri?n. This poem is probably not Raleigh's. His 
claim to it is based solely upon the initials " Sr. W. R." appended to a 
MS. copy {Pawl. 85). The poem occurs in several versions, and was 
very popular. It is quoted in The Knight of the Bursting Pestle and in 
Llans Beer-pot, his Lnvisible Comedy ; the second stanza may have sug- 
gested Ophelia's " How should I your true love know." {Haml. iv, 5, 
23, see p. 128 of this volume.) The metres of the earlier years of 
Elizabeth's reign are so overwhelmingly iambic, that this perfectly 



212 uVOTES. 

metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapsslic movement comes like a 
surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my attention 
to three epigrams — printed among the poems of Raleigh, ed. Hannah, 
p. 55 — all of them in more or less limping anapaests, but not of this 
measure. It is quite possible that the tune to which these verses were 
sung may have affected the measure. See Chappell's Old Engl. Popular 
Music, I, 69. An interesting chapter on the relation of Elizabethan 
music to Elizabethan verse remains to be written. There is a large 
number of poems upon the pilgrimages to Walsingham (for which see 
the Percy Folio MS., ed. 1868), several of them in the peculiar metre of 
this poem : — 

In the wracks of Walsingham 

Whom should I choose. 
But the queen of Walsingham, 

To be guide to my Muse ? 
Then thou prince of Walsingham 

Grant me to frame 
Bitter plaints to rue thy wrong, 
Bitter woe for thy name. 

4 26. iVoiv. The MS. reads no. 

4 27. Love likes not the falling fruit. Cf. " Let thy time of marriage 
be in thy young and strong years ; for, believe it, ever the young wife 
betrayeth the old husband, and she that had thee not in thy flower will 
despise thee in thy fall." Raleigh's Instructions to his Son (Bliss). 

4 30. Forgets. MS., forget. 

4 33. Dureless. That endures not. 

4 36. Toy. Trifle. Cf. 151 7, 186 23, 199 11. 

4 1. Thomas Lodge was son of a Lord Mayor of London, and, after 
many vicissitudes, attained distinction as a physician. As a writer he 
displays remarkable versatility ; romances, plays, satire, lyric, and occa- 
sional verse attesting this quality. The position, too, of Lodge among 
the dramatic predecessors of Shakespeare is one of great interest, but 
does not belong here. I take my text for Lodge from the reprints of 
the Hunterian Club : this poem from No. XXXV, 46. The original 
has no title. The first line of Glaucus and Scilla, the chief poem of the 
volume so entitled, fixes the date — of that poem at least — as prior to 
Lodge's departure from Cambridge, 1577 : — 

Walking alone — all lonely full of grief — 
Within a thicket near the Isis' flood, etc. 

See also the author's dedication, in which he promises his friend a 
better poetical fare "next term." 



iVOTES. 



213 



Lament. According to Mr. Bullen {Lyrics froiji Elizabethan Rornances, 
p. viii) this poem is " closely imitated from the opening stanzas of a 
longer poem of Philippe Desportes," beginning : — 

La terre, naguere glac6e, 

Est ores de vert tapissee, 

Son sein est embelli de fleurs, 

L'air est encore amoureux d'elle, 

Le ciel rit de la voir si belle, 

Et moi j'en augmente mes pleurs. 

Mr. Bullen adds: "It seems to me that whenever Lodge imitates 
Desportes, he greatly improves upon his model." 

4 4. Teen. Grief, vexation. 

5 11. Where. Whereas. 

5 1. Perigot and Willie's Roundelay. As the diction of The Shep- 
herds' Calendar is intentionally archaic, and indeed artificially so, I have 
here reproduced the original in spelling and punctuation, following Dr. 
Sommer's Photographic Facsimile of the original ed. of 1579. It is 
likely that either HobbinoPs Ditty in Praise of Eliza, in April, or the 
beautiful Lament for Dido, of November, would better have represented 
the Calendar. But both are long, and Spenser is represented with full 
spread sail in the Prothalamion, p. -](>, below. This roundelay was 
afterwards reprinted in England 's Helicon. 

" It fell icpon. Perigot maketh his song in praise of his love, to whom 
Willy answereth every under verse." E. K.'s Glosse upon the Calendar. 
With this note it becomes unnecessary to print the names Perigot and 
Willy in alternation throughout the poem, as in the original. 

5 3. Shrieve. Shrive, confess sinners. 

5 4. Gynneth. Begins. 

5 8. Spill. Perish. 

6 10. Bellibone. Belle et bonne, a compound, the reverse of the more 
usual Bonibell of the next verse. 

6 14. Gray is greete. Grey denotes weeping or mourning. 

6 15. Saye. A strong coarse stuff, like serge. 

6 18. Chapelet. Trisyllablic. 

6 22. Seely. Innocent, cf. 7 65 and 169 9. 

6 23. Wood. Mad. 

6 27. Rovde. Took a chance, or roving shot at. Cf. " At marks 
full forty score they used to prick and rove.'' Polyolbion, Song xxvi. 

6 35. Lightsome levin. Brilliant lightning. 

6 38. Moonelight. Trisyllabic. 



214 NOTES. 

7 43. Gryde. " Pearced," explains E. K. 

7 44. Wexen. Wax, grow. 

7 45. Raunch. Wrench. 

7 52. Carelesse. Collier reads cureless, a tempting emendation. 

7 53. Bale. Cf. 1 1. 

7 55. Zyz///^. The ilk, the same. 

7 56. You may buye gold, etc. A proverb. 

7 61. Gracelesse gi'iefe. A grief that comes from not obtaining her 

grace or favor. 

7 64. Priefe. Proof. 

"Nothing can be prettier in its way than this little song. It has that 
true lyrical quality which forces us to chant the words to a melody 
suggested by themselves." (Collier.) On the metrical freedom of this 
Roundelay, see Introduction, § 2. 

Although well known, one of the earliest critical utterances on 
Spenser may well find a place here : •' This place have I purposely 
reserved for one, who if not only, yet in my judgment principally, 
deserveth the title of the rightest English Poet that ever I read : that is 
the author of the Shepherds ' Calendar, intituled to the worthy gentle- 
man, Master Philip Sidney, whether it was Master Sp. or what rare 
scholar in Pembroke Hall soever, because himself and his friends, for 
what reason I know not would not reveal it, I force not greatly to set 
down : sorry I am that I can not find none other with whom I might 
couple him in this catalogue in his rare gift of poetry." (W. Webbe, 
A Defense of English Poetry, 1 5S6.) 

8 1. Come hither. This poem is quoted in part by Puttenham {Art 
of English Poesy, 1 589, written about 1 580) as an instance of " anti- 
pophora or figure of response," and there mentioned as Oxford's (ed. 
Haselwood, I, 172). It was very popular, appearing in Breton's Bower 
of Delight, 1 591 and 1597, and in Deloney's Garland of Goodwill, 1596. 
Cf. with this the same author's The fudgment of Desire, in The Paradise 
of Dainty Devises, ed. Brydges, p. 69. It is variously entitled. 

Gascoigne calls the verse of this poem, here divided in printing, " the 
commonest sort of verse which we use nowadays (viz: the long verse of 
twelve and fourteen syllables), I know not certainly how to name it, 
unless I should say that it doth consist of Boulter's measure, which 
giveth twelve for one dozen and fourteen for another." {Certain Notes 
of Instruction concer fling the Making of Verse or Rime in English, ed. 
Arber, p. 39.) 

I follow Dr. Grosart's text, which purports to be that of the earliest 
MS. {Rawl. MS. ij). This editor finds "an atmosphere of graciousness 



NOTES. 215 

and culture that is grateful about the verses of this Earl." {Fuller 
Worthies' Miscellanies, IV, 1 1.) Oxford is ramblingly described by Mr. 
Saintsbury as " Sidney's enemy (which he might be if he chose), and 
apparently a coxcomb (which is less pardonable), but a charming writer 
of verse." {A History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 127.) Oxford was 
Lord High Chamberlain in 15S8. 

8 4. Fo7id. Foolish. Cf. 19 5, 41 11, 62 13. 

8 8. Self-Conceit. Probably here equal to very imagination rather 
than in the ordinary modern sense. 

9 27. I insert the to make the metre agree with that of the corre- 
sponding line in the preceding stanza. Another reading gives : " Whom 
dost thou think to be thy foe." 

9 34. Make. Mate. Cf. 32 35. 

No one who would know Sidney should neglect the reading of 
Greville's tribute to their early friendship, usually entitled The Life of 
the Renowned Sir Philip Sidjiey. " Indeed he was a true model of 
worth; a man fit for conquest, plantation \i.e., colonizing], reformation, 
or what action soever is greatest and hardest amongst men: withal such 
a lover of mankind and goodness, that whoever had any real parts, in 
him found comfort, participation, and protection to the uttermost of 
his power : like Zephyrus he giving life where he grew." ( Works of 
Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, ed. Grosart, IV, 37.) 

9. Wooing Stuff. In the absence of any external evidence, I prefer 
to place this poem in lighter vein before the strong, pure notes of 
Astrophel and Stella. I follow Dr. Grosart's text for Sidney. The title 
is not in the MS. 

9 8. Use. Be accustomed to, to make a practice of. 

9 10. Learns. This verb was commonly employed with a personal 
object in Elizabethan English. Cf. "The red plague rid you For 
learning me your language," Tempest, i, 2, 365 ; and see Abbott's 
Shakespearian Grammar, § 291. 

10 22. Ln question. This line reads in the MS. : " In question ? nay, 
'uds-foot, she loves thee than." The oath is ugly in itself and destruc- 
tive of the metre. I therefore omit it with Ellis and Linton. 

10 22. Than. A common by-form of then, as then of than {quam). 
These variations are in this book reduced to modern spelling, except 
where the older form is necessary to preserve the rime. 

10. My true love hath my heart. I prefer to give this little poem 
in the form in which it first appeared in print, in Puttenham's Art of 
English Poesy (ed. Arber, p. 233), where it is quoted as an illustration 
of ''Epimone or the love-burden." In the next year it appeared in 



216 NOTES. 

sonnet form in the Arcadia. This version adds the following lines to 
those of the text, transferring the refrain to the close : 

His heart his wound received from my sight, 
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart ; 
For as from me on him his hurt did light, 
So still methought in me his hurt did smart: 
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss. 
My true-love hath my heart and I have his. 

Dr. Grosart considers both forms Sidney's own. (Introd. to The 
Shepherds* Calendar^ in his ed. of Spenser, IV, p. xxxvi.) 

11 3. Sense. Probably here plural, the final s not being pronounced 
— nor in this case even written — for euphony's sake. See Sh. Gram., 
§471 and the numerous examples there given. Cf. also a possible 
instance, 160 15. 

11 13. Sprite. Spirit. These forms are interchangeable in Eliza- 
bethan English. Cf. v. 4 of this sonnet, above. 

11. Astrophel and Stella. The chronology of Astrophel and Stella 
seems beyond accurate solution. I content myself with an upward 
limit, as in the cases of Donne and the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Stella 
became Lady Rich in March, 1581, by our calendar. It is doubtful if a 
sonnet of the series was written after the close of that year. Sidney 
himself was married in January, 1583. For a discussion of the bio- 
graphical particulars underlying the writing of this sonnet sequence, 
the reader should consult Dr. Grosart's Introdtcction, Poems of Sidney, 
1877. Mr. F. T. Palgrave thus concludes a discerning note on Sidney 
in the last edition of his Goldefi Treastuy of English Lyrics : " In a 
certain depth and chivalry of feeling — in the rare and noble quality of 
disinterestedness (to put it in one word), — he has no superior, hardly 
perhaps an equal, amongst our poets ; and after or beside Shakespeare's 
Sonnets, his Astrophel and Stella . . offers the most intense and powerful 
picture of the passion of love in the whole range of our poetry." (Ed. 
1892, p. 351.) 

11. Eirst Song. The readings of this song are various and may be 
seen in Dr. Grosart's Sidney, I, 151. I have followed this editor in 
preferring the (!) to the (?), as the successive outbursts of each stanza 
seem to me rather rapturous exclamations than mere interrogations. 

11 3. All song of praise is due seems better than the reading be due. 

11 5. Marry state with pleasure. Combine dignity with vivacity. 
Cf. 178 3. 

11 8. Forgat all measure, i.e., when heaven made her. (Grosart.) 

12 10. Staineth. Stains by comparison. (Grosart.) Cf. 41 4. 



NOTES. 217 

12 13. The feet, whose step all sweetness planteth. Cf. below the con- 
cluding lines of A^,glani cur's Lajjient, p. 194 : — 

And where she went, the flowers took thickest root 
As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. 

12 17. Doth patience nourish. The passage is obscure, if not corrupt. 
Grosart reads and defends the variant of some of the early edd. passions 
nourish. Professor Kittredge reminds me that patience, with con- 
stancy, secrecy and obedience, was one of the conventional virtues of 
the chivalric lover (cf. Chaucer's Troilus, iii, 21), and hence an appro- 
priate feeling for the lady to inspire. 

12 22. Long-dead beauty with increase reneweth, i.e., reincarnates, so 
to say, and enhances in her person the charms of beauties long since 
dead. Cf. in this vol. Daniel's sonnet on p. 48 and Shakespeare's on 
p. 86. 

12 24. Rueth. Sorrows, laments. 

12 25. Loosest fastest tieth. Possibly intentionally difficult of utter- 
ance to symbolize the thought. 

12 32. Not miracles, etc. Miracles are not wonders. 

13 1. With how sad steps. " The first perfectly charming sonnet in 
the English language," declares Mr. Saintsbury. {Elizabethan Litera- 
ture, p. 102.) Cf. a fine sonnet of Charles Best, printed in Davison's 
Poetical Rhapsody (ed. Nicolas, p. 184): — 

A SONNET GF THE MOON. 

Look how the pale Queen of the silent night 
Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her, 
And he as long as she is in his sight, 
With his full tide is ready her to honor : 
But when the silver waggon of the Moon 
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow. 
The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan, 
And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. 
So you, that are the sovereign of my heart, 
Have all my joys attending on your will ; 
My joys low ebbing when you do depart, 
When you return, their tide my heart doth fill. 
So as you come, and as you do depart, 
Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart. 

13 5. Long-with-love-acquaijited. Sidney, like Shakespeare, is fond 
of compound words ; and in his Defotce of Poesy (ed. Cook, Athenceuni 



218 NOTES. 

Press Series, ^. 55), considers English " particularly happy in composi- 
tions of two or three words together, . . . which is one of the greatest 
beauties can be in language." Cf. chamber-melody, 14 4 ; safe-left, 14 6; 
false-seernir.g, 15 15. See also Sh. Gram., §§ 428-435. In lyrical composi- 
tion compound words are not so frequent as in the drama or in satire. In 
this collection there are scarcely four score, none of them compounded 
of more than two words, excepting the one which forms the heading of 
this note. Some of the noun compounds are: morning-grey, 38 7; 
care-charmer, 50 1; bride-house, 161 22 ; adjectives : sweet-breathing, 76 2 ; 
heart-qtcelling, 79 97; flower-adorned, 110 22; humble-eyed, 191 3; adverbs: 
ill-adventred, 50 6; seld-seen, 198 11; verbs : over-blow, 116 36 ; out-weep, 
205 4. Bold and otherwise notable compounds are Donne's long-strayed 
eyes, 101 l, and vice-nature, 103 6; Jonson's crown-worthy, 117 88; 
Lodge's morn-waking birds, 59 3 ; Drummond's sweet-strained moisture, 
182 5 ; and ^^'whox's greatest-fairest, 203 52. 

13 8. Descries. Shows, discloses. 

13 10. Wit. Mind, understanding. Cf. 13 2, 14 12, 16 38, 178 4, 186 2. 

13. 14. Do they call ungratefulness a virtue there? 

13. Come Sleep ! Cf. Daniel's Care-charmer Sleep, p. 50 below, and 
the note there. 

13 4. Indifferent. Impartial. 

13 5. Prease. Press, throng : the spelling of the original preserved 
for the rime. 

13 10. Deaf of noise and blind of light. Of is the earlier reading. 
To seems, as Dr. Grosart puts it, " the countess' or the editors' im- 
provement." 

13 11. A rosy garland. Posy, "as the garland of silence {sub rosa)," 
comments Dr. Grosart, and refers to an interesting use of the word rose 
in the Epistle prefixed to the Arcadia, ed. 1593. Speaking of those who 
carp at the author's works, the editor writes : " To us, say they, the 
pastures are not pleasant : and as for the flowers, such as we light on 
we take no delight in, but the greater part grow not within our reach. 
Poor souls ! what talk they of flowers ? They are roses [i.e., allusions 
about which silence had better be kept], not flowers, must do them 
good." 

13 12. In right. In modern English, by right or of right. See .S",^. 
Gram., § 163. 

14 1. High way, since you my chief Parnassus be. Because it leads 
him to Stella, the inspiration of his song and the cause of his fame. 

14 2. My Muse . . tempers her words. Cf. the familiar lines of the 
opening speech of Richard III, i, i, 10: — 



NOTES. 219 

And now instead of mounting barbed steeds 
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, 
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber 
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. 

14 6. Safe-left. Cf. 13 5. 

14 8. Thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. Playing with words 
was the besetting sin of Elizabethan authors from Shakespeare himself, 
whose puns and double meanings are notorious, to jesters like Tarlton 
and professional jugglers with words, like Nashe, in his prose. Cf. in 
this volume: Breton's "The heaven of heavens with heavenly power 
preserve thee," 66 11 ; Davison's " Which presence still presented^ Absence 
hath not absented^'' 75 42-43 ; Shakespeare's " Love is not love which 
alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove^'' 
86 2-4; Jonson's '■'Close the close cause of it," 115 16. For puns and 
plays upon the meaning of a single word, see 78 67 and 180 8. 

14 9. Still. Ever, continuously, always. This is the usual Eliza- 
bethan meaning of the word. See Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, 
§ 69, and cf. 25 18, 28 33, 181 14, 187 13, 188 17, etc.; on p. 143 23 the 
word occurs in its modern sense. 

14 12. Lot. More in the original sense of chance than in the sense 
we are accustomed to give the word in modern English. 

14 14. ''Hundreds of years T^ exclaims Mr. Ruskin, "you think that 
a mistake ? No, it is the very rapture of love. A lover like this does 
not believe his mistress can grow old, or die." {Fors Clavigcra, vol. Ill, 
p. 6, Lecture XXXV.) 

14 9. Ne. Nor. This form was already archaic in Sidney's time. 
It was employed by Spenser and Watson, the latter, in a limited sense, 
a poet of Sidney's school. Cf. 23 18. 

14 11. Without. Unless. 

14 12. Wit. Cf. 13 10. 

"■ Sidney's sonnets — I speak of the best of them — are among the 
very best of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the | 
sanctity, the high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his 
compositions of a similar structure. . . . [But] the sonnets which we 
oftenest call to mind of Milton were the compositions of his maturest 
years. Those of Sidney . . . were written in the very heyday of his 
blood. They are stuck full of amorous fancies — far-fetched conceits, 
befitting his occupation : for true love thinks no labor to send out 
thoughts upon vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich 
pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in self- 
depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the beloved. 



220 NOTES. 

We must be lovers — or at least the cooling touch of time, the circum 
praecordia frigtis must not so have damped our faculties, as to take 
away our recollection that we were once so — before we can duly appre- 
ciate the glorious vanities and graceful hyperboles of the passion. The 
images which lie before our feet (though by some accounted the only 
natural) are least natural for the high Sidnean love to express its fancies 
by." {Last Essays of Elia, Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, Works 
of Lamb, ed. Talfourd, II, 232.) 

15. A Dirge. Dr. Grosart {Sidney, II, 4) conjectures that this 
dirge was written upon the marriage of Stella. There is no evidence, 
however, to show that it was ever connected with the Astrophel arid 
Stella collection. 

15 8. Franzy. Frenzy. Cf. 10 22. 

15 15. False-seeming holy. Perhaps false-seeming-holy, i.e., hypocrisy. 

15 21. Trentals. From Late Latin, trigintalia. Services lasting 

thirty days, in which thirty masses were said for the repose of the dead. 

15 23-26. Sir JVrong, etc. Injustice ordains that the marble of my 
mistress' heart shall be the tomb of love, inscribed with this epitaph : 
Her eyes, etc. 

16. Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, held no mean place in 
the favor of Elizabeth, nor "for any short term," says Naunton. " He 
had the longest lease and the smoothest time without rub, of any of her 
favorites. . . . He was a brave gentleman, and honorably descended. 
. . . Neither illiterate ; for . . . there are of his now extant some 
fragments of his poem, and of those times, which do interest him in the 
Muses, and which shews the Queen's election had ever a noble conduct, 
and its motions more of virtue and judgment, than of fancy." {Frag- 
menta Regalia, ed. Arber, p. 50.) 

The words of the general title of Greville's works, ed. 1633, " written 
in his youth and familiar exercises with Sir Philip Sidney," are sufficient 
to justify the position which I give the selections in this volume. 
Greville must have begun writing at an early age ; if the poem attributed 
to him in the Paradise of Dainty Devises be his — which is doubtful — 
as early as 1576. Calica exhibits very decidedly, it seems to me, a 
deepening maturity of mind, and may have been written through a 
series of years. The text is from Dr. Grosart's Greville, Fuller 
Worthies, 1870 ; the titles of the first three poems are those of the 
original edition. 

16 3. Fires. Dissyllabic. Cf. 21 13. 

16 7-8. Strong nature, etc. Just as verses 11-14 answer the ques- 
tion of vv. 9-10, so these verses reply to the question: Are you afraid, 



NOTES. Ill 

they [your eyes) show me too 7nuch pleasure? The answer, with its 
ellipses supplied, may be given somewhat thus : That is an idle fear : 
for all hope of pleasure {i.e., in the reward of my love to you) is dead 
and buried. Yet strong, i.e., compulsive and uncontrollable, nature 
forces me to deck with admiring and lover-like speeches — as a grave 
with flowers — the grave wherein it {i.e., dead pleasure) lies ; using these 
admiring speeches not, as you may wrongly suppose, because I regard 
myself as your hopeful lover, but because impelled by your Excellence, 
which is such that it can never be expressed in measure. ' 

16 14. Star-gazers only multiply desires. Those whose lowliness 
removes them far from the possibility of becoming partakers in 
Cynthia's (that is, the Queen's) love, only multiply their own desires 
of the unattainable by contemplating her star-like glory. 

17 3. In the chimneys . . . wrought. Cf. 152 7-10. 
17 20. Overwatched with. Out-watched by. 

17 21. Ever. I read for even. 

17 24. Vulcan s brothers. Perhaps those that emulate Vulcan in 
their attempt to entrap lovers. Fine nets, evidently suggested by a 
recollection of the net in which Vulcan caught Mars and Venus, and 
possibly here a figure for the wiles by which the lover was rendered 
jealous and parted from his mistress. My colleague. Professor Gude- 
man, suggests that Vulcan's brothers stands for lovers in general, placed 
as was Vulcan with respect to Mars and Venus. The allusion is cer- 
tainly far from clear. 

17 28. Wit. Cf. 13 10 and the references there. 

17 29. Leave. Cease. Cf. 51 6. 

18 7. Abuse. Deceive. 

18 9. Yet who this language, etc. Yet whoever speaks to the people 
of things as they actually are destroys the rule of prevalent opinion, 
and breaks the idol which the senses worship, i.e., the appearances of 
things. This is a typical ' difficulty ' of Greville, due to pregnancy of 
thought and excessive condensity of expression. Cf. 16 14, 18 9-14 and 
19 5. 

18 3. Be distasted. Disgusted, out of temper with. 

18 6. Lustings. Longings, desires. 

18 9-14. Then man, etc. Man is here exhorted to endure himself, 
that is, to practice Stoicism ; or to forsake himself and turn to heaven, 
that is, accept the Christian solution. I am indebted for this note to 
Professor Kittredge. 

19 1. Whenas. When. Cf. 30 8, 38 11. 
19 1. Lust. Cf. 2 7. 



222 NOTES. 

19 5. Fond. Foolish. Cf. 8 4. 

19 5. Then fond desires, etc. I.e., Then the folly of those that fear 
death only because it ends life is shown in their vain longing for life, 
that they may amend the past. The difficulty consists in making "fond 
desires " stand first for the folly of those that fear, and secondly for the 
folly of vainly wishing. In the first, " desires " is misleading ; in the 
second, superfluous. 

19 8. Eternal glass. Cf. 2 Corinthians, iii, i8. 

19 11. Living me7i. I.e., those now enjoying the eternal life. 

19 11. How he left his breath. How could he come to die without 
once having thought of his end. The contrast in this poem lies between 
the dying mortal with his longings for the continuance of an earthly 
life and the blessed, living men, who wonder how a man could consent 
to live to his end without thought of death. Professor Kittredge sug- 
gests an alternative explanation for the phrase heading this note : " Did 
he make a good or a bad end .-• " in which case we have the same con- 
trast between the dying mortal and the blessed, " who so despise mortal 
life in comparison with immortality (which they are enjoying) that they 
really consider, in connection with that mortal life, only one moment, — 
and that the moment of dissolution." 

Charles Lamb's remark on Greville's work is well known : " Whether 
we look into his plays or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find 
all frozen and made stiff with intellect." {Specimens of English Dra-, 
matic Poets, ed. 1835, I, p. 316.) Less known, but not less excellent, is 
the following from The Muses'' Library, 1737, quoted by Dr. Grosart 
{Greville, II, vi): "Perhaps few men that dealt in poetry had more 
learning or real wisdom than this nobleman ; and yet his style is some- 
times so dark and mysterious, I mean it appears so to me, that one 
would imagine that he chose rather to conceal than illustrate his mean- 
ing : at other times, his wit breaks out Avith an uncommon brightness, 
and shines, I had almost said without an equal. 'Tis the same thing 
with his poetry : sometimes so harsh and uncouth, as if he had no £ar 
for music ; at others, so smooth and harmonious, as if he was master 
of all its powers." It is not Donne, but Greville, that is the Elizabethan 
Browning. For substantiation of this I would recommend a comparative 
reading of A la ham and Sordello. 

19. Apelles'' Song. The songs of Lyly's plays, bearing the titles 
here given, appeared first in print in the collected edition of his works 
by Blount, 1632 ; the authorship is not certain, although it is highly 
probable that they are Lyly's, as it was no unusual custom to excise 
the songs of a play in putting it to press. Mr. Bullen, after praising the 



NOTES. Ill 

" fairy lightness " of Lyly's lyrics, calls our attention to the fact that 
they were " written at a time when our English lyrists were doubtfully 
feeling their way." {Lyrics from the Dramatists, p. vii.) See the excel- 
lent monograph by my colleague, Professor Clarence G. Child, Johii Lyly 
and Euphuism, Muenchner Beitraege, VII, 1894. Euphuism was in Lyly 
but one phase of a genius admirably light, agile, and alert. Little is known 
of his life, except that he danced attendance upon the court and was 
disappointed in his ambition to become Master of the Revels. See 
especially his two witty petitions to the Queen, published by Professor 
Arber in his Introduction to Eicphues, p. 9. 

20. George Peele. In presence of the delicacy and beauty of such 
songs as these, it is difficult to believe Peele the reprobate that he is 
often described. However miserable or degraded the later part of his 
life may have been, it is certain that he began his dramatic career in no 
small estimation at court, the play from which these songs are taken 
having been performed before the Queen. It is probable that Peele 
died when no more than forty, one of the several whose untimely fall 
made way for the mightier Shakespeare. 

20 10. Bene. Cf. 21 7, and Sh. Gram., § 332. 

20 11. Roundelay. See p. 5, and Introduction, § 2. 

20 27. Can. Here in its original sense of have knowledge or skill. 
Cf. the V. above for the more usual modern sense, 38 l and 65 14 ; see 
also Sh. Grai7i., § 307. 

21 13. Prayers. Words of this class are usually dissyllabic, e.g.: 
fire, 16 3 ; flowers, 74 20, 92 8 ; power, 43 10, 107 5 ; hour, 137 12, 161 6. 
Occasionally, however, they are contracted to a monosyllable : bower, 
30 33. See Sh. Grarn., § 480. 

21 3. Sleep xvith velvet hand. Cf. Chapman's " Night ... lay thy 
velvet hand," 91 13. 

22 10. Note how the omission of the unaccented syllable, which 
ordinarily begins each line, brings precisely the rhetorical stress required 
upon the word such. 

11 11. I read (5^ for by with Bullen. 

22 14. I read mock for mockes with the same editor. 

22 1. Shag-hair. See Sh. Gram., § 433, p. 320, and cf. 13 5, 22 13. 

22 6. Wanton. The restriction of this word to an objectionable sense 
is of modern growth. It is here equivalent to our playful use of the 
word rogue or rascal. Cf. 29 9 and 30, where the word is used as a 
term of endearment. 

22 7-14. These headed are with golden blisses, etc. Cf. Ovid, Meta- 
morphoses, i, 466 : — 



224 NOTES. 

Eque sagittifera prompsit duo tela pharetra 
Diversorum operum ; fugat hoc, facit illud amorem. 
Quod fecit auratum est, et cuspide fulget acuta, 
Quod fugat obtusum est et habet sub arundine plumbum. 

22 12. Trance. Fit of abstraction. 
22 13. Btcss. Kiss. 

22 14. Untruss. Literally to untie the' points or laces by which the 
breeches were held, or to loosen the girdle, hence to give relief. A 
natural exclamation from the smitten clown, who thinks that death 
alone can relieve him. 

-23. Thomas Watson appears to have been an unusually accom- 
plished man. He was a competent scholar, translating much from 
Latin and from contemporary Italian and French poets, having been 
associated with Dr. Byrd in the publication of the earliest madrigals in 
English. His own poetry is in Latin and English ; and his association 
was chiefly with the court circles of Sidney and Oxford, and the poets 
Spenser, Lyly, and Peele. He "was highly valued among ingenious 
men," says Anthony a Wood, but was all but lost to our literature 
until Professor Arber restored "his name in golden letters to the great 
Bead-Roil of the acknowledged Poets of Great Britain." {Arbei'^s 
Reprints, Watson, p. 3.) It may be surmised that others besides his 
contemporaries have overestimated Watson. 

23 1. If Jove hitnself. This poem was subsequently reprinted with 
a few verbal changes in England'' s Helicon, and there entitled The 
Shepherd'' s Resoliction in Love. 

23 4. Wight. Being, mortal.^ Cf. 177 3. 

23 18. Ne. Cf. 14 9. 

23 1. Resolved to dust. Each of the poems of Watson's Passionate 
Century is preceded by a brief explanation, after the manner of 
E. K.'s Glosse upon the Shepherds^ Calendar. The last twenty sonnets, 
so-called, are written under the motto, " My Love is Past," and the 
prefatory note to this one is as follows : — 

" The author faineth here, that Love, essaying with his brand to fire 
the heart of some lady, on whom it would not work, immediately, to 
try whether the old virtue of it were extinguished or no, applied it unto 
his own breast, and thereby foolishly consumed himself. This invention 
hath some relation unto the Epitaph of Love, written by M. Girolimo 
Parabosco : — 

In cenere giace qui sepolto Amore, 

Col pa di quella, che morir mi face, etc." 



NOTES. 225 

Watson is at much pains that the reader may believe his " passions " 
"but supposed"; and this, with his learned gloss, has not a little 
destroyed their effect. 

23 4. Doubting. Fearing lest, being in doubt whether. 

23 5. His. Here the neuter form of the possessive, since superseded 
by its. See Sh. Gram., § 228. 

23 5. Can. Cf. 147 2, 160 77. 

24 7. In sooth, no force. No matter for that, indeed. Lust. Desire, wish. 
24 14. filing. Harming, injuring. Used also by Sylvester in his 

translation of Du Bartas. 

24 17. Here lietJi Love, etc. Note the inversion, an affectation of 
classic construction. 

24. A Handful of Pleasant Delights. This collection, "a song 
book rather than a book of poetry," is supposed to have appeared first 
as early as 1566, having been licensed in 1561. No ed. earlier than that 
of 1584 is extant, however. This has been reprinted by the Spenser 
Society, 187 1, and by Mr. Arber in his English Scholar's Library, No. 
3, 1878. Of Clement Robinson nothing is known ; he may have been 
the author of some of the selections as well as the editor, as in the case 
of Grimald. As to the poem of the text, the Stationers' Register exhibits 
that a ballad, entitled A fayjie would I have a godly thing to show tinto 
my ladye, was registered July 22, 1566. This may have been an earlier 
form of our selection, or the latter may be a parody. I make no 
apology, for including these verses under the circumstances. 

24 7. Make adventtire was the term applied to the undertaking of 
any business venture or speculation ; whence adventurer was applied to 
merchants of importance, or capitalists, as we should term them. 

24 12. Lacks. Cf. 25 26. 

25 16. Gazes be not geason. It is not uncommon to see people look- 
ing about. Geason. Scarce, unusual. 

25 18. Still. Always. Cf. 14 9. 

25 26. Silk wives. The original reads silkye wines. 

25 26. What lack ye ? The familiar cry of tradesmen to passers by. 

25 30. Cheap. Cheapside ; also a general term for any market, or 
marketplace. Cf. Eastcheap. 

25 32. On a heap. See Sh. Gram., § 180. 

25 35. Gravers of the golden shows. Goldsmiths, whose shops were 
amongst the richest and most conspicuous. 

25 37. Sempsters that sews. The third person plural of the verb in 
-s is common in Elizabethan English. It is perhaps here intentionally 
colloquial. See Sh. Gram., § 333, and cf. 65 36, 125 1 and 132 l. 



226 NOTES. 

25 38. Let me. Hinder me, prevent me. 

25 42. Than. Then. Cf. 10 22. 

26 46. Willing. Will, intent. 

26. Robert Greene. The author of A Groats-worth of Wit is 
assuredly too well known to require here any repetition of the sad 
details of youth and talents thrown away. Whoever would know this 
remarkable career should not fail to consult Professor Storojenko's 
study and Professor Brown's An Early Rival of Shakespeare, both 
reprinted, the latter in part, by Dr. Grosart. The text is from the 
Huth Library, Greene. 

26. Doralicia's Ditty. Cf. a superficial resemblance, in the earlier 
parts, between this poem and a poem signed " M. T." in The Paradise 
of Dainty Devises, beginning : — 

The sturdy rock for all his strength, 
By raging seas is rent in twain ; 
The marble stone is pierced, at length, 
With little drops of drizzling rain. 

26 9. Alate. The origin of these forms in a preposition, on, is 
noticed by Ben Jonson in his Grammar. "^4 hath also the force of 
governing before a noun." (Ed. Cunningham, III, 450.) 

26 13. Hap. Outcome, fulfilment ; more w^M-ai^^ fortune, lot, \Tl 13. 

27. Lament. Verses of Praise and foy upon Her Majesty^ s preserva- 
tion, whereunto is annexed Tychborne''s Lame?ttation written in the Tower 
with his own hand and an answer to the sa?ne. 1586. So runs the title 
of the tract in which this poem first occurred {Collectanea Anglo-Poetica 
X, 337). It was frequently republished in the song-books of the day, 
and also appears in Reliquiae Wottonianae. Tychborne, a young man 
of good family, was one of Babington's fellow-conspirators against the 
life of Elizabeth. He was executed in 1586. 

27. Nicholas Breton seems to have been the earliest of that class of 
Elizabethan writers somewhat vaguely called the pamphleteers ; writing 
incessantly and unequally verse, prose, it mattered little what ; fre- 
quently in debt and trouble ; facile, ready, ever fertile. It is surprising 
what really good work was sometimes done under such conditions. 
Even now, far from all the works of Breton have been collected. His 
very popularity, which was great amongst his contemporaries, has con- 
tributed to make his works of great scarcity. There is a naturalness, 
an easy flow, and gaiety, a tenderness and purity about Breton that 
ought to restore him to fame. For an interesting account of him, see 
Mr. Bullen's Introduction to his Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances, p. 
xix sqq., also Dr. Grosart's Memorial Introduction, Breton. 



NOTES. 227 

27. Olden Love-Making. First reprinted by Dr. Grosart {Chertsey 
Worthies' Library, Breton, Daffodils and Primroses, p. 19) from a MS. 
in the possession of F. W. Cosens, Esq., of London. The MS. also 
contains poems on the death of Sidney, and may therefore be assigned 
to a date soon after 1 586. Mr. Bullen, who quotes this poem in the 
Introduction to his Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances, remarks upon it 
as follows : " There can be no harm in quoting here one little poem, a 
description of love-making in the happy days of pastoral simplicity, 
when girls did not look for costly presents (rings, chains, etc.) from 
their lovers, but were content with a row of pins or an empty purse, — 
the days when truth was on every shepherd's tongue and maids had not 
learned to dissemble. Whether there ever was such a time, since our 
first parents were driven out of Paradise, we need not stop to enquire. 
The old poets loved to talk about it." 

28 19. Sunny beam. Text apparently corrupt. 

29. Rosalind 's Madrigal. " A charming picture in the purest style 
of the late Italian Renaissance," says Mr. Palgrave. For the form of 
the Madrigal, see Introduction, p. liv. 

29 5-8. Notice the rhetorical force of the repeated rime, and of. 
Lodge's success in the same device, p. 60. 

29 9. Wanton. Cf. 22 6. 

29 15. If so. If. 

30 33. Bozver. A private chamber, boudoir. 

30 34. / like of thee. I am pleased with thee. Cf . " You have been 
bolder in my house Than I could well like of." Middleton, A Chaste 
Maid in Cheap side, v, 2. 

30 36. Play thee. Cf. Sh. Gram., § 296. 

30 1. Rosalind's Description. "Readers who have visited Italy," 
says Mr. Palgrave, " will be reminded of more than one picture by this 
gorgeous Vision of Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its Paradisaical 
naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to ' the Islands of Terceras 
and the Canaries'; and he seems to have caught, in those southern 
seas, no small portion of the qualities which marked the almost con- 
temporary Art of Venice, — the glory and the glow of Veronese, or 
Titian, or Tintoret, when he most resembles Titian, and all but sur- 
passes him." {Golden Treasury of English Lyrics, p. 351-) 

30 1-3. Like to the clear . . . is her hair. The clear (clearness) in 
highest sphere is the empyreac or sphere of pure fire,which was outer- 
most and next to the priinum mobile in the old cosmography, not the 
crystalline sphere as explained by Mr. Palgrave. The passage then 
means : Her hair is of the selfsame color as the brightness (the clear) 



228 NOTES. 

of the empyrean. The difficulty of the passage consists in the tautology, 
or possibly the double construction, involved in saying like to and of 
selfsame, of the same color like to the empyreal brightness. I am 
indebted to Professor Kittredge for this note. 

30 7. Refinifig heavejt by every wink. Making heaven seem more 
beautiful whenever she opens her eyes or gives a glance, because heaven 
is bright and blue, like them. 

30 8. Wheitas. When. Cf. 59 17, 88 12, 110 19. 

30 13. Shroud. Here used for any covering. 

30 18. Within which bounds she balm encloses. Note the alliteration 
of this line. 

31 37. /« her sight. In, or as we should say at or by the sight of 
her, i.e.^ when they behold her perfections. 

31 41. Ny7nphs. Marriageable girls. 

31 43. For her fair there is fairer none. Compared with her beauty 
there is none more beautiful. The use of an adjective, fair, where we 
should employ a noun is a familiar Elizabethan idiom. Cf. clear above, 
30 1. Mr. Palgrave prefers to read : ^^for a fair there'' s fairer none : If 
you desire a beauty, there is none more beautiful than Rosaline." 

31 1. Down a down. Cf. the following close imitation of the metre 
and spirit of this poem, sometimes attributed to Raleigh (Oxford ed. of 
his works, VIII, 705) : — 

Hey down a down did Dian sing 

Amongst her virgins sitting, 
Than love there is no vainer thing, 

For maidens most unfitting 
And so think I with a down, down, derr}^, etc. 

The metrical parallel continues throughout the poem. 

32 7-10. When Love was first begot, etc. Thus paraphrased : " When 
Love was first begotten, and, by the will of the Creator, was given to 
mankind as a part of his earthly lot in order to fill up the measure of his 
joy in life," then, devoid of all deceit, etc. 

32 13. Cojiceit. Thought, idea, conception. Cf. 88 7. 
32 29. False semblance. Hyprocrisy. One of the allegorical per- 
sonages made famous by the Roman de la Rose. 

32 33. Makes. I read makes with Bullen for made of the original ed. 

32 35. Make. Mate. Cf. 9 34. 

33 1. If women could be' fair. This poem is ascribed to Oxford in 
Rawl. MS. 85, fol. 16; it exists in various versions. I have followed 
the text of Dr. Grosart in his Fuller Worthies' Miscellanies, IV, with 



NO TES. 229 

the one or two variations noted from the less vigorous version contained 
in Byrd's Psalms, Sonnets and Songs. 

33 1. Fond. Foolish. Cf. 8 4. 

33 2. Still. Ever. Cf. 14 9. 

33 6. Laugh. For mnse, according to the version of Byrd. 

33 9. Haggards. Wild or untrained hawks. 

33 13. Our sport. For disport. I read with Byrd's version. 

Z?i 15. Lure. An artificial or other decoy used to recall the hawk to 
its perch on the fist. Cf. 70 13. 

34 1. Fair is my love. Cf. with the first stanza a madrigal in 
Morley's First Book of Madrigals, 1 594 : — 

April is in my mistress' face, 
And July in her eyes hath place ; 
Within her bosom is September, 
But in her heart a cold December. 

Oliphant {Musa Madrigalesca, p. 74) surmises that both are translations 
from a foreign original. 

34 17, 18. My harvest in the grass bears grain and The rock will wear, 
etc., are proverbs. With the latter cf. the familiar Gutta cavat lapidem 
fion vi sed saepe cadendo and 26 1-2. 

34 1. Ah, were she pit/fid. This poem is found on the back of the 
title of some of the latest eds. of Pandosto. Dyce prints it from the 
ed. of 1694 (Greene and Pecle, p. 294). Collier conjectures that it may 
have been taken from the earliest, now non-extant, ed. of Pandosto. 
There is nothing, however, to prove the existence of any ed. earlier than 
that of 1588. "The lines are written by Dorastus in praise of Faunia ; 
the characters of which correspond to Florizel and Perdita " in Shake- 
speare's Winter'' s Tale. 

35 8. There is. These words are supplied by Dyce. 

35 9. So as. In modern English such as. See -5"//. Gram., § 145. 

35 12. Cankered bozver. The canker is the dog-rose. Cf. / Hen. /K, 
i, 3, 176: "To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, and plant this 
thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke." Bower is conjectured for flower, 
which repeats the rime above. ( The Gentleman's Magazine, March, 
1833, p. 218.) 

35 1. Some say Love. Note in this poem Greene's skillful handling 
of the repeated words, and compare this with the management of the 
refrain of Doron's Description of Sa?nela, p. yi- Greene's phrasing too 
in these short measures is remarkable for its freedom and success. 

36 3. Sower. Sour. 



230 NOTES. 

36 1. Wanton. Frolicsome creature. Used here as at 29 9 as a 
term of endearment. Cf. wag below, v. 3 and a modern use of the 
words rogue, rascal, etc. 

36 7. / was woe. This idiom for the earlier woe is {to) me is of very 
early origin, well before Chaucer. As the sense of the inflection was 
weakened, woe came to be considered as a predicate. Cf. Sh. Gram., 
§ 230. 

37 13. Stint. Stop, cease. 

37 15. By course. In a stream. Cf ." The people . . . by numbers 
swarm to us." 3 Hen. VI, iv, 2, 2, and Sh. Gram., § 145. 

37 28. Bliss. Bless, with which it was early confused. Cf. the 
Middle English verbs, blissen, blissien, bliscett, and 180 11. 

37 1. Weed. A garment of any kind. 

37 5. Arethusa Fount. This is the emendation of Walker ; the 
original edd. read Arethusa faint. 

38 7. Morning-grey. Cf. 13 5. 

38 8. Glister. Glitter, glow. Cf. 76 4. 

38 11. Whenas. When. Cf. 30 8. 

38 11. Brightness . . . move. Cf. 45 12. A misagreement far less 
frequent than the plural subject followed by a verb in -s, for which 
cf. 25 37. 

38 19. Bravest. Gayest, most beautiful. 

38 19-24. Venus . . . Juno . . . Pallas. A revision of the judg- 
ment of Paris, by which his award was taken from the fortunate goddess 
and bestowed upon the adored one, was a frequent device of Elizabethan 
poetical flattery. Peele's Arraignment of Paris is a dramatic amplifica- 
tion of it, and it was used still earlier, in 1577, by Gascoigne in a satiri- 
cal poem entitled The Grief of foy. In each of these cases it was the 
peerless perfections of " the nymph Eliza " which demanded this reversal 
of the dfecrees of the gods. 

38 20. Show. Pomp, august appearance, state. 

38 22. Wit. Cf. 13 10. 

38 10. Buxom. Here in much its modern meaning. Cf. Bardolph's 
buxom valor, which has been variously explained as ' obedient ' and 
'sturdy.' Hen. V, iii, 6, 28. 

39 1. Philon, the Shepherd, his Song. The authorship of this 
beautiful song is absolutely unknown ; it was reprinted in England^s 
Helicon. Dr. Byrd "was senior chorister of St. Paul's in 1554; he is 
conjectured to have been born in 1538. From 1563 to 1569 he was 
organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He and Tallis were granted a patent, 
which must have proved fairly lucrative, for the printing of music and 



NOTES. 231 

the vending of music-paper. In later life he appears to have become a 
convert to Romanism." He died in 1623. (Oliphant.) 

40 21. Was leapt. To be for to have is still in use with certain verbs 
of motion. In Elizabethan English this use was more general. See 
Sh. Gram.y § 295. 

41 4. Stains all faces, i.e., by comparison ; cf. 12 10. 
41 7. Touched does melt. Cf. 35 6. 

41 11. Fond. Cf. 8 4, 19 5. 

41 3. As brightly shine, Aurora's face, etc. In modern idiom so 
brightly shine that Aurora'' s face. 

41 12. Bed. Couch of state. 

42 12. Neat. Spruce, finical in dress. Cf. " Still to be neat,'' 151 1. 
42 1. Polyhymnia, a Description of a Triumph at Tilt vi2i% reprinted 

by Dyce from a copy in the Library of the University of Edinburgh 
presented by William Drummond (Dyce's ed. of Peek, p. 565). I quote 
the following from Oliphant's condensation of Sir W. Segar's account of 
Honors, Military and Civil, 1 602. (Nichol's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 
III, 60 ; Oliphant, Mus. Madr., p. 1 57.) " Certain yearly Triumphs were 
solemnized in memory of the applause of Her Majesty's subjects at the 
day of her most happy accession to the crown of England, which tri- 
umphs were first begun and occasioned by the right virtuous and honor- 
able Sir Henry Lea, master of Her Highness' armory ; who of his great 
zeal and desire to eternize the glory of her Majesty's court in the be- 
ginning of her reign, voluntarily vowed, — unless infirmity, age or other 
accident did impeach him, — during his life to present himself at the 
tilt, armed, the day aforesaid, yearly ; there to perform in honor of her 
sacred Majesty the promise he formerly made. The worthy knight, 
however, feeling himself at length overtaken with old age, and being 
desirous of resigning his championship, did on the 17th of Nov. 1590, 
present himself, together with the Earl of Cumberland unto her High- 
ness under her gallery window in the Tilt yard at Westminster, where 
at that time her Majesty did sit, accompanied ... by many ladies and 
the chief est nobility. Her majesty beholding these armed knights com- 
ing towards her, did suddenly hear a music so sweet and secret, as 
everyone thereat greatly marvelled. The music aforsaid was accom- 
panied with these verses, pronounced and sung by Mr. Hale, her 
Majesty's servant, a gentleman in that art excellent. . . . After other 
ceremonies Sir Henry Lea disarmed himself, and kneeling upon his 
knees presented the Earl of Cumberland ; humbly beseeching that she 
would receive him for her knight, to continue the yearly exercise afore- 
said. Her Majesty having accepted the offer, this aged knight armed 



232 NOTES. 

the earl, and mounted him upon his horse. That being done, he put 
upon his own person a side-coat of black velvet and covered his head 
in lieu of an helmet with a button-cap of the country fashion." The 
assignment of the song to Essex in a Masque at Greenwich (Arber's 
English Garner, IV, 45) is clearly wrong. The poem is undoubtedly 
Peele's. It was reprinted by Dowland in 1597. 

43 7. His helmet now shall make a hive for bees. Cf. Geoffrey 
Whitney's Choice of Emblems, 1 586 : — 

The helmet strong that did his head defend, 
Behold for hive of bees in quiet serve, etc. (BuUen.) 

Thackeray has applied these lines most fittingly to Colonel Newcome's 
retirement as a pensioner. {The A''ewco?nes, chap. 76.) 

43 10. Prayers. Dissyllabic here, as frequently. Cf. 21 13. 

43 18. Beadsman. Here one who prays for another, rather than 
one who is supported upon alms. 

43. I have followed Dyce in general as to the dates of Shakespeare's 
plays. 

43 1. Winter. Regarding the concluding song of this play as made 
up, as it really is, of two companion pieces, the one on Spring, the other 
on Winter, I do not depart from my plan of including only entire poems 
in printing only the latter. 

43 9. Keel the pot. Cool by ladling to prevent boiling over. (Malone.) 

43 11. Saw. A story, long tale, here ; rather than a maxim as in 
" wise saws and modern instances." 

44 14. Crabs. Wild apples. 

44. Thomas Dekker. The known events in the life of Dekker 
exhibit little more than successive debt, imprisonment, and advances 
from Henslowe on promised work. Well may Mr. Fleay exclaim in his 
Biographical Ch7'onicle of Dekker's : " the saddest story in all this 
book." Mr. Fleay — to whom all students of our dramatic litera- 
ture owe a great debt, vexatious as his contradictions are at times — 
assigns the writing of the earliest version of Forttmatiis, in which he 
includes the portions containing the lyrics of the text {i.e.. Act i, Sc. 
1-6), to 1590, by reason of the many allusions to Lyly and his imitators. 
The play was revived in 1596, again in 1599, and printed in 1600. 

44 2. Alack. Sometimes explained as a by-form of alas ; more 
probably ah ! + lack, failure. 

45. The Shepherd's Wife's Song. Professor Brown of Canterbury 
College, Christ Church, New Zealand, uses these words of the "lyrical 
cry" of Robert Greene: "[Here was a man], wild with the feverish 



NOTES. 233 

life of an actor, yet penning songs that breathe in every line of rest, like 
that beautiful one . . . beginning ; ' Sweet are the thoughts that savor 
of content' (see p. 47), . . . oblivious to the graces of his most virtuous 
wife, for the blandishments of 'a sorry ragged quean,' and yet capable 
of uttering the most lyrical eulogy of rustic married life, The Shepherd's 
Wife's Song." {Afi Early Rival of Shakespeare, Grosart's Greene, 
I, xHx.) 

46 28. Affects. Affections, feelings. Cf. " I hope I shall not need 
to urge the sacred purity of our affects." The Case is Altered, i, 3, 15. 

46 36. Spill. Spoil, destroy. Cf. 5 8. 

46 37. Snort their fill. It is probable that this expression conveyed 
no objectionable meaning to Elizabethan readers. Cf. 66 46, 77 65. 

46 42. Tide or sithe. Both of these words here signify time. Tide was 
commonly substituted by the Puritans for mass, in such words as Chris- 
tide ; cf. 81 177. Sithe was originally a journey, hence a time, occasion. 

47. Conte7it. Cf. with this poem Barnes' beautiful sonnet, p. 56, and 
Dekker's song, p. 93. 

47 9. Grees. Agrees. 

47 10. Consort. Agreement in the musical sense of producing 
harmony. Mean. The middle part in three-part music ; sometimes 
alto, sometimes lector. Here with a play on the ordinary sense {aurea 
medioci'itas) . 

47 10. Mirth and modest fare. With Linton I read modest for 
music's fare, which is unintelligible, and a misprint probably due to the 
word mjisic immediately above. 

47. This Honorable Entertai7iment was "given to the Queen's 
Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honorable 
the Earl of Hertford." The song is therein entitled The Ploughman's 
Song ; I have preferred the title in Englatid's Nelicofi. 

47 3. With a troop, etc. I follow the reading of Dr. Grosart in this 
and the following three lines ; this he derives from the Cosens MS. 

47 4. Forth the wood. Forth is here a preposition. Cf. ^^ forth thy 
father's house," i.e., out of the house. M. A'^. D., i, i, 162. 

48 23. Abuse. Deceive, beguile. 

48. Samuel Daniel enjoyed a great reputation in his day, especially 
at Court, where as a member of the Queen's (i.e., Anne, the Queen of 
James I) household, he held various offices, for a time rivaling Jonson 
as court writer of Masques. Daniel attempted tragedy in the style of 
Seneca, and the pastoral drama in imitation of Guarini, as well as nar- 
rative and lyric verse, whilst his answer to Campion's attack on English 
rime exhibits sensible ideas and a graceful prose style. 



234 NOTES. 

48 1. ' Restore thy tresses. This sonnet was one of twenty-seven son- 
nets of Daniel, which were published, without his consent and during 
his absence abroad, by Thomas Nashe with Sonnets after Astrophel. I 
have followed Daniel's own later revision, that of 1623, as in Dr. 
Grosart's ed. Jonson, who regarded Daniel with jealousy from his 
preferment at Court, ridicules this sonnet in Cynthia's Revels, v, 4, thus : 
" You that tell your mistress her beauty is all composed of thefts ; her 
hair stole from Apollo's goldy locks ; her white and red, lilies and 
roses stolen out of Paradise ; her eyes two stars plucked out of the 
skies ; her nose the gnomon of Love's dial, that tells you how the clock 
of your heart goes," etc. 

48 4. Remove. Send back. 

48 9. Her. Here dative. Cf. Sh. Gram., § 220. 

49. Delia. There were three early editions of Delia, two in 1 592 
and one in 1594, all under the author's supervision. Daniel, like Dray- 
ton, was much given to revising his works, not always for the best. 
The position of Daniel as a sonneteer is interesting, as he was the first 
to follow the work of Sidney. See on this subject especially an inter- 
esting article entitled : Wie weit geht die Abhangtgkeit Shakespeare'' s von 
Daniel als Lyriker? by Dr. Hermann Isaac, Sh. Jahrbuch, XVII, 165. 

49 14. Whilst that. Note the addition of the conjunctional affix, 
that. Sh. Gram., § 287. 

49 2. Refresh. Refreshing. Other cases of nouns formed from verbs 
without suffix 2iX& flourish, 49 5, 51 21, 85 9 ; shine, 58 6 ; remove, 70 4. 
49 3. But till. Only until. 

49 5. Flourish. Blossom, perfect growth. A favorite word with 
Daniel. Cf. 51 21 ; used also by Shakespeare, 85 9. 

50 11. Atid that in beauty. The ed. of 1594 exhibits this reading: 

When time has made a passport of thy fears, 
Dated in age, the kalends of our death, 
But ah ! no more ! this hath been often told. 
And women grieve to think they must grow old. 

50. Care-chariner Sleep. This is one of a series of "tournament 
sonnets," as Mr. Saintsbury aptly calls them, sonnets written on a theme 
already practiced, and in emulation of former achievements. Professor 
Cook of Yale has pointed out that this sonnet of Daniel's is second in 
a series celebrating the same subject, beginning with Sidney's sonnet, 
p. 13, and going through Southwell, Griffin, Drummond, and Fletcher, 
to 1 61 9. He has also shown that the sources of all are ultimately to 
be found in Seneca, Ovid, and the so-called Orphic Hymn to Sleep ; and 



NOTES. 235 

further, in Spenser, Ariosto, Politian, and Chaucer. See Mod. Lang. 
Notes, IV, 8, 229; and V, i, 11. See also a note in Main's English 
Sonnets, p. 253. 

SO 6. Shipwrack. The usual form. Cf. 110 22. 

50 6. Ill-adventred. Ill-adventured. 

50. A71 Ode. This poem appeared in the first authorized ed. of 
Delia, 1592. 

50 3. Reports. Answers or echoes back to. 

51 11. Bereaven. Taken away by violence, a by-form of bereaved 
formed on the analogy of the strong verbs. 

Lowell instances " well-languaged Daniel," as he was called by Wil- 
liam Browne, to show " that the artistic value of choice and noble 
diction was quite as well understood in his day as in ours." He adds 
of Daniel : " His poetic style is mainly as modern as that of Tennyson." 
Shakespeare Once More, Prose Works, III, 11, and ibid., IV, 280. 

51. Thomas Nashe. To those who know Thomas Nashe only as a 
not over successful playwright, the master of vigorous contemporary 
colloquial English, the rough and ready controversionalist, gifted with 
inexhaustible Rabelaisian humor and a terrible mastery of the language 
of Billingsgate, it may be a surprise to find him likewise a sweet and fer- 
vent lyrist. 

51 3. Less than in a day. In less than a day. 

51 6. Leav'st to appear. Ceasest to appear. 

52 8. Dispersed. Scattered. 

52 5. The pabn. Flowers and branches in general. It was a com- 
mon practice of the day so to decorate houses. 

52 2. Fond. Foolish. Cf. 9 33. Toys. Trifles. Cf. 4 36. 

52 6. Lord have mercy on us. Not an unusual refrain in the songs 
of the day. See Chappell, Early Engl. Popular Music, I, 74. Profes- 
sor Kittredge informs me that "this inscription, with a cross, was 
ofiicially put on the doors of infected houses"; and refers me to R. 
West's poem To the pious memory of my dear Brother-in-law, Mr. 
Thomas Randolph : " The titles of their satires fright some more than 
Lord have mercy writ upon a door." 

53 25. Earth holds ope her gate. The grave. 

53 26. The bells. Funeral bells, perhaps also those rung by the 
attendants of the dead-cart, calling on all to bring out their dead. 

52 31-33. HelPs executioner, the plague; vaiit art, physic or medicine. 

52 32. For to hear. The double preposition before the infinitive, 
now a vulgarism, was good usage in Nashe's day, and before and after, 
as in Herrick. See Sh. Gram., § 1 52. 



236 NOTES. 

53 39. Earth but a player'' s stage. Cf. 121 12. Also the familiar 
passage of As You Like It, ii, 7, 139; Chapman's Bussy D'Afnbois, 
i, I ; Jonson's The N'ew Inn, i, i ; and verses prefixed to Heywood's 
Apology for Actors. 

I quote the following words of Mr. Bullen on these poems of Nashe : 
" The songs of Summer'' s Last Will and Testament are of a sombre 

turn. We have, it is true, the delicious verses in praise of Spring. . . . 

But when the play was produced it was sickly autumn and the plague 

was stalking through the land. 

' Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace : 
Ah, who shall hide us from the winter's face ? 
Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease. 
And here we lie, God knows, with little ease.' 

Very vividly does Nashe depict the feeling of forlorn hopelessness 
caused by the dolorous advent of the dreaded pestilence. His address 
to the fading summer, ' Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year,' 
is no empty rhetorical appeal, but a solemn supplication ; and those 
pathetic stanzas, ' Adieu, farewell earth's bliss,' must have had strange 
significance at a time when on every side the death bells were tolling." 
{Introd., Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists, p. ix.) 

54 5. Gan. This tense of the verb gin was commonly employed with 
an infinitive in Middle English as equal to did. Cf. 23 5. 

54 19. Perfit. Perfect. An older form. See below, v. 16. 
54 20. Grees. Agrees. 

54 21. Folded. Interlocked. 

55 1. The Solitary Shepherd^s Song. " In imitation of Martelli, 
having the right nature of an Italian melancholy," are Lodge's own 
prefatory words. {IIu7itei-ian Club ed. of Margarite, p. 78.) For 
another of Lodge's imitations, see 4 l. The story, A Margarite of 
America, was written while Lodge was with Cavendish in the Straits 
of Magellan, and may possibly be esteemed by those who consider the 
accidental place of writing, rather than language and nationality, as the 
criterion of the literature of a country, the earliest specimen of 'Amer- 
ican Literature.' 

55 12. IVhenas. When. Cf. 30 8. 

56. Barnabe Barnes, was the son of a bishop, an Oxford man, and 
much traveled abroad. As the friend of Gabriel Harvey, he was tra- 
duced by Thomas Nashe. He is widely known for his erotic sequence 
of sonnets and other Italian forms, Parthenophil and Parthenope. Pro- 
fessor Dowden rates him above Watson : The Acade7?iy, Sept. 2. 1876. 



NOTES. IVl 

56 3. Which. Note the use of which here and in verses 6 and 12 
for the modern who. Cf. 81 3 and Sh. Gram., § 265. 

57. Come live with me. Marlowe was dead before Lyly's practice 
of writing original songs for dramas became popular. Considering his 
marvelous passion and the surpassing lyrical excellence of certain pas- 
sages of his plays, it is surprising that Marlowe should have left behind 
him no more than this solitary specimen of his mastery over the shorter 
lyric. I have given the version of England^ s Helicon ; in The Fassiofi- 
ate Pilgrim the fourth and sixth stanzas do not appear, nor is the 
author's name given. In the second ed. of Walton's Complete Angler, 
1653, the following stanza is inserted l:)efore the last : — 

Thy silver dishes for thy meat, 
As precious as the gods do eat, 
Shall on an ivory table be 
Prepared each day for thee and me. 

This poem enjoyed great popularity and inspired a number of imitations 
and answers. Cf. ' If all the world and love were young,' attributed to 
Sir Walter Raleigh, and ' Come live with me and be my dear,' both 
published in England^ s Helicon; Donne's The Bait; and Herrick's 
' Live love with me and thou shalt see.' I quote the first of these : — 

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD. 

If all the world and love were young, 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue. 
These pretty pleasures might me move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 

Time drives the flocks from field to fold, 
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold ; 
And Philomel becometh dumb ; 
The rest complains of cares to come. 

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
To wayward winter reckoning yields ; 
A honey tongue, a heart of gall 
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. 

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies 
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, 
In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 



238 NOTES. 

Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds, 
Thy coral clasps and amber studs, 
All these in me no means can move 
To come to thee and be thy love. 

But could youth last, and love still breed, 
Had joys no date, nor age no need, 
Then these delights my mind might move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 

58. So7mets. That two poems of such different forms and so far 
removed from the quatorzain should be called sonnets, is an illustration 
of the looseness with which that term was often employed. The title 
of the first is that given in Ward's English Poets. 

58 1. Gilds. The original reads guides, an evident misprint, gui[l]des. 
This is Bullen's emendation. 

58 5. Bower. Cf. 30 33, and also 21 13 note. 

58 10. Firm. Make firm, strengthen. Almost any noun could be 
converted into a verb in Elizabethan English without the addition of a 
suffix. Cf. deads, 58 10, spark, 64 4, tingod, 104 20, length, 154 10. See 
Sh. Gram., § 290. 

59. To Phyllis. This poem has been assigned to Sir Edward Dyer 
with a steady perversity which is surprising: Ward prints it as Dyer's, 
Engl. Poets, I, 378, and Mr. Andrew Lang more recently says : " The 
young English Muse is like Sir Edward Dyer's Phyllis, the Fair Shep- 
herdess," quoting the first four lines of this poem immediately after. 
{Introduction to Elizabethati Songs in Honor of Love and Beauty, 1893, 
p. XXX.) The mistake has arisen from the fact that when this poem 
was reprinted in England'' s Helicon, seven years after its appearance 
in Phyllis honored with Pastoral Sonnets,- the initials " S. E. D." were 
ignorantly subscribed to it. The poem is in the best style of Lodge, 
and it may be suspected that not a little of the reputation of Sir Ed- 
ward has depended upon this mistake. 

59 4. For to. Cf. 53 32. 

59 5. Prime-feathered. Perhaps blossoming early in the spring. 

59 11. Desart. A common Elizabethan form. Cf. 60 15, 66 9. 

59 17. Whenas. Cf. 88 12, 110 19. 

59 18. Deads one. Not an unusual verb in this age ; cf. 58 10 and 
Chapman, Ody. xviii : " With many an ill hath numbed and deaded me." 

59 19. Nill. Ne will, will not. " Lodge's love poems have an 
exquisite delicacy and grace : they breathe a tenderer and truer passion 
than we find in any of his contemporaries. His sonnets are loose and 
straggling, lighter and less compactly built than Constable's or Daniel's; 



NOTES. 239 

but they have a wonderful charm of sweet fancy and unaffected tender- 
ness. . . . There is a seeming artlessness in Lodge's sonnets, a win- 
ning directness, that constitutes a great part of their charm. They 
seem to be uttered through a clear and pure medium, straight from the 
heart itself." William Minto, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 259. 

60. The Phoenix' Nest was edited by one ' R. S. of the Inner 
Temple,' whose identity seems undiscoverable. Mr. Bullen informs us 
that many of the best poems of this collection were republished in 
England's Helicon. 

60 1. Accurst be Love. Notice the effect of the repeated rimes, an 
effect dependent upon the fact that not one of them is forced. Cf. Now 
what is Love, on the next page, where the device is less successful be- 
cause more forced and longer sustained. The same device, used for 
musical effect rather than for emphasis, will be found in Nashe's 
Spring, above, p. 52. 

61. Now what is Love. As The Phoenix^ Nest is inaccessible to me 
except in selection, I have been compelled to follow Mr. Bullen in the 
following note : " This poem originally appeared in The Phcenix'' Nest, 
1593 ; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in England's Helicon, 
1600, and Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602. It is ascribed to Raleigh 
in a MS. list of Davison's." {Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, 
p. 191 f.) Mr. Bullen likewise refers to Hannah's ed. of Raleigh. I can 
find this poem in neither Mr. Bullen's ed. of England's Helicon, nor in 
Nicolas' ed. of the Rhapsody, moreover neither the older nor the newer 
ed. of Hannah's Raleigh mentions it so far as I can discover. The poem 
does occur in Robert Jones' Second Book, 1601 (see Bullen, ibid., p. 89), 
and also in Hey wood's Rape of Lucrece, 1609. I notice that Mr. Gosse 
appears recently to have accepted it as Heywood's. {The facobean 
Poets, p. 121.) This seems highly improbable. In the absence of 
proofs I have no opinion to offer. The somewhat antiquated language, 
especially the sauncing bell, seems to suggest an early date, however. 

61 4. Sauncing bell. Saints'-bell ; the little bell that called to pray- 
ers. (Bullen.) 

61 13. Sain. Sayen. Cf. 20 10, 51 11 ; an archaic form at this date, 
common in the old ballads ; e.g., The Battle of Otterburn, stanza 46. 
Here falsely used as an imperative. Cf. v. 18 below where the use 
as an infinitive is correct. 

62 26. Go. Walk ; cf. 87 11. 

62 29. Proves. This verb was frequently employed intransitively. 
See Sh. Gra?n., § 293. 

62 30. Trow. Believe, think. 



240 - .VOTES. 

62. Amoretti. Dr. Grosart, whose text and whose assignment of 
the date I follow, writes thus : " Always tender and chivalrous, almost 
always beautiful, here and there perhaps on a level with Petrarch's 
ordinary vein, — these sonnets leave upon the mind a more thoroughly 
pleasing picture of the poet himself than he gives elsewhere. . . . The 
pastoral disguise is less marked ; and if the gracious and fantastic con- 
ventionalities of the love-sonnet, which he shares with a thousand other 
writers, throw a veil which blunts the outline of natural expression, yet 
the note of genuine feeling, — hardly, perhaps, rising to the authentic 
tone of absolute passion, — is audible throughout." (See Dr. Grosart's 
Spenser, IV, Ixxxvii.) 

62 6-8. She may entangle, etc. Cf. Bateson's Song on p. 190. 

62 13. Fondness. Cf. 8 4. 

63 7. Rare. Rarified. 

63 10. Mote. Must, generally employed in the subjunctive. 

63 12. Eke. Also, likewise. 

63 13. Sitk. Since; a form often employed by Spenser; see also 
Drummond's frequent use of it, 179 11, 12 ; ISO 2, 7 ; and 181 5 ; and 
Jonson, 127 7. 

63 9. Spill. Destroy. Cf. 5 8. 

63 12. Salve. Cure, apply a remedy to. 

63 14. Boiuer. Cf. 30 33 and 58 10. 

64 1. Hairs. The original eds. read heares, which I have modern- 
ized for the sake of intelligibility. 

64 4. Does spark. Sparkle. Cf. 58 10, 154 18. 

64 10. The gate with pearls. Cf. Gascoigne's use of the same familiar 
image : " two rocks, bedecked with pearls of price." 1 8. 

64 12. Sprite. Cf. 11 13. 

64. The Arbor of Am or 021s Devises: wherein yoicng gentlemen may 
read many pleasant fancies and fine devices, and thereon meditate divers 
sweet conceits to court the love of fair ladies and gentlewomen, iS97-> so 
runs Breton's title. The title was entered in the Stationers' Register, 
delights standing for devices, in Jan. 1 593-94- But one copy of this 
work is extant. 

64 3. Doubt. Fear. Dole. Misfortune. 

64 4. Unhappy chief Unfortunate above all. C/^/<?/^= chiefly. 

64 5. Lap. Wrap. 

64 9. Wit. Cf. 13 10. 

64 12. Note the personal use of the verb ail. 

65 13. Wretch. Cf. the use of this word as a term of endearment 
with wanton, similarly employed, 36 1. 



NOTES. 241 

65 14. Ca7i. Cf. 20 27. 

65 22. Right well. Formerly good usage. Cf. 65 37 below, and 
140 111. 

65 36. Words hath. Cf. 25 37. 

65 37. Right glad. See above, 65 22, and cf. the expression right 
honorable. 

65 39. Rascal. Here in the obsolete, technical sense employed in 
hunting, the rascal being an inferior deer or other beast, unfit for the 
chase. 

65 40. Of blood and botte. In blood and bone. An. antiquated 
expression found in the Middle English metrical romances. 

66 46. Wail my fill. Cf. 46 37, 77 55. 

66. A Sonnet. Although of considerable subtlety of construction, 
this " sonnet " is carried off so artlessly and sincerely that it seems to 
me the perfection of the light, fantastic rapture of an Elizabethan lover. 
Cf. the Sonnet of Barley's Nezv Book of Tabliture, below, p. 82. 

66 1-2. Those eyes, etc. Cf. Hood's lines : 

We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 

Breton delights to juggle with words, to invert them, distribute and 
rearrange them, e.g. : 

Say that 1 should say, I love ye .^ 

Would you say, 'tis but a saying ? 
But if love in prayers move ye, 

Will you not be moved with praying .? 

66 15. Amaze. Bewilder, perplex. 

67. A Pastoral. This poem also appears in England's Helicon. 
Mr. Palgrave considers this " a stronger and finer piece of work than 
any known to be his [Breton's]." After some, perhaps considerable, 
reading of Breton's poetry, I cannot subscribe to this, but would place 
Breton beside Greene and Lodge in this lighter pastoral mode. 

67 1. On a hill, etc. The charming particularity of these two stanzas 
as to trifles might teach the lesser pre-Raphaelites somewhat. 

67 11. Did despite. Did an act of injury to; more usually, cast 
despite on. 

68. Robert Southwell was educated at the Jesuit College at Douay, 
and sent back to England as a missionary, like his fellow-priests, Parsons 
and Campion. He was apprehended in 1592, imprisoned, racked, and 
at last hanged for a traitor in 1595. He appears to have been a man 



242 NO TES. 

of high principle and much amiability. His works, which must have 
been written some years before their publication, were exceedingly 
popular. 

" Never must be forgotten St. Peter's Complaint,^^ writes Bolton 
{Hypercritica, Haselwood's Ancient Critical Essays, II, 250), "and those 
other serious poems, said to be Father Southwell's; the English whereof 
as it is most proper, so the sharpness and light of the wit is very rare 
in them." 

68 1. Where wards. This has been repeatedly misprinted words. 

68 6. When sun is set. Southwell omits the definite article more 
frequently than many of his contemporaries. Cf. 68 7, 14, 24 ; 70 9. 

68 7. Seely. Innocent, harmless. Cf. 6 22. 

68 16. Fearful. I.e., full of fear, timorous ; not, as now, terrible to 
others. Cf. 69 5. 

68 18. Miishrutnps. Mushrooms. Both forms were common in 
Southwell's day. Marlowe uses the former in Edward II, i, 4 ; Browne 
the latter, 177 3. 

68 19. In Amati's pomp. Esther, chap. 4. The forms Aman and 
Mardocheus, for Haman and Mordecai, are those of the Vulgate, the 
Bible, of course, which Southwell read. 

68 21. Dives^ feast. Luke, xvi, 19-31. 

69. The Burning Babe. Jonson told Drummond that, " so he had 
written that piece of his [Southwell's], The Burning Babe, he would 
have been content to destroy many of his." {Notes of Ben/onson's Con- 
versations with William Drummond, Sh. Soc. Publ., 1842, p. 13.) 

69 5. Fearful. Cf. 68 16. 

69 14. Fry. Here simply to burn, conveying to the Elizabethan no 
such sense as it now conveys. 

70. Mceoniae, or certain excellent Poems and Spiritual Hyfnn.":, otnitted 
in the last impression of Peter'' s Complaint ; beiftg needful thereunto to 
be annexed, as being both divine and witty. All composed by R. S. : so 
runs the title of this work. 

70 4. Remove. Removal. Cf. 46 28, 49 2, 51 21, 58 6. 
70 5. Haled. Hauled. 

70 9. When inward eye. Cf. 68 6. 

70 11. Jesses. The short strap, usually of leather, fastened about 
the leg of a hawk used in falconry and continually worn. [Century 
Dic'y) 

70 13. Trains to Pleasure's lure. " To train " was the usual term in 
falconry for drawing or enticing the hawk back to the fist. " The lure " 
was the decoy. Cf. 33 15. 



JVOTES. 2,3 



70 19-so^ ^.„ semes are. etc. Our senses are foes to the lessons 

/U 22. .ff«,/f. Propensities, dispositions. 

71 29-31. Z>««. />/.«.«„., rf^«^,. ^ 3^^^ 
lo^g verse = comfits. G,„, a trap or snare of any l<i„d: 

71. I/enry Chettle was a publisher as well as a pamphleteer and 
phaywright. It was he that edited Greece's Gr^ats^orl of^T^,^ 
and shortly after apologized handsomely to Shakespeare, i KinUHeZ's 
i?'-^^, for the slighting allusions of the former tract "''"""■' ' 

and obii"^"*-"" ""' "''"^'"'' '""'' distinguished as the nominative 

s'i::rar.ni:n ~'^ ^°""^" '^ -'"- -^ '"^^ -• 

felLw'' '^''^' ""'• " °'""' ""' ''"'""ously for a rogue, a mad 

71 11. ^F/«^. Clever, intellectually able. 

72 />.«««> ^«„,>„„ was the eldest son of William Davison the 
unfortunate privy councillor and secretary of state of Queen Elizabeth 

t'cT r T'"-' '" ^"''"' ^" '"^ --"'-" of Mary S uar tJ 
the Council. Francis was educated a, Gray's Inn, where a Masque of 

his was performed in ,594. Davison and his father were adherent! o 

a. tlfr '"' '"' ^" ''^"" °' P""''^^' preferment wh hi 

fall. Young Francis seems to have made little of the law, and in ,602 

urned n.s attention .0 publishing the poetry he had written ndtoU 

his fthe? " "! 'T °' "" ^"" *^ ^^^^ '«°«- *>>» '"e will of 
his father was probated. He is supposed, however, to have lived 
until about 16,8. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas haL collecled Ihe 
da a about Davison in his ed. of the J^.aps.e^j,, pp. ;_„;, ^T^^^ 
confesses that he has nothing to add. (Bullen's ed. of the ^..^.^!, i" 

72. MaJri^a/. I have referred this poem and the two followin,r 
undoubted works of Davison, to .595-96, on the authority of h poett 
words m ,603 : " Mine own [poems] were made, most of them six 1 

travels. To the Reader, Preface to the Poetical Rhapsody, ed Nicolas 
p. VII, as above. Mr. BuIIen informs us that this poem is a t ranrtion 
from the Italian, Delle Rime di LuM Croto Cieco d'fZ ''""^"°" 

r,s^ate etc., ,59. p. 6, (BulleVs T^Zr^^ T" 
^J::::':^'- ^^*^-— >^es notary orsmaH s'take^'and 

i^:Lre^-.:-'r:Sc:^^C:«: 



244 NOTES. 

reason for depriving Davison of the authorship of it; as it is not only 
in his manner, but occurs, with the two poems above, in a section of 
the Poetical Rhapsody, entitled Sonnets, Odes, Elegies and Epigrams by 
Francis and Walter Davison. This Walter was the third son of William 
Davison. The poetical gift of the family seems to have extended to 
still another brother, Christopher, who appears as the translator of 
several psalms towards the end of the collection. 

73 7. An happy life. Ironical of course, and a better reading than 
Unhappy life of some edd. 

74. My only star. This poem is thus entitled in the ed. of 1602 : 
Ode, being deprived of her sweet looks, words, gestures, by his absence in 
Italy, he desires her to write unto him. 

74 8. That all his thoughts. Cf. Sidney's * Only in you my song 
begins and endeth,' 11 4. 

74 15. Still. Ever. Cf. 14 9. 

75 26. Lines. Letter. Cf. v. 53 below. 

75 37-40. Your sweet voice . . . far distant places. Some of this 
" ode " reads not unlike Donne, who may well have affected so facile a 
genius as Davison. 

75 38. Weeds. Cf. 37 i. 

75 42-43. Which presence . . . absetited. It was next to impossible 
for the alert Elizabethan mind to resist these verbal quibbles. See 14 8 
note. 

76. Prothalamion or a spousal verse made by Edm. Spenser in honor 
of the double marriage of the two honorable and virtuotis ladies, the Lady 
Elizabeth and the Lady Katherine Somerset, daughters to the right honor- 
able the Earl of Worcester and espoused to the two worthy gentlemen 
M. Henry Gilford and M. William Peter, Esquires : so runs the title of 
this poem, which was printed privately for the families concerned. Pro- 
thalamion is Spenser's latest extant poem. With it should be compared 
the Epithalamion, his own wedding song. 

76 3. Delay. Temper, mitigate. (Todd.) 
76 4. Glister. Glitter. Cf. 38 8. 

76 12. Rutty. Full of roots, rooty, is the explanation of Collier, 
with a reference to Chapman's " rutty sides " of a hill. (Iliad, xvii, 654.) 
Professor Kittredge, however, suggests the simpler explanation, " full of 
hollows, gullies, tracks (as it were ' ruts ') worn by the rains." 

76 12. The which. See Sh. Gram., § 270. 

76 15. Bowers. Cf. 30 33. 

76 16. Paramours. Lovers ; the word was seldom used in the derog- 
atory modern sense at this time. 



NOTES. 245 

76 17. Is not long. Is not far hence. 

76 25. Entrailed. Interwoven. 

76 26. Flasket. A long, shallow basket. 

76 27. Feateously. Neatly, nmibly. Cf. 127 2. 

77 33. Vermeil, A favorite word with Spenser. 

77 38. Lee. The river of that name, a tributary of the Thames at 
Greenwich; mentioned also below, v. 115. 
77 48. To tkejn. In comparison to them. 
77 55. Eftsoons. Soon after, before long. 
77 55. Their fill. Cf. 46 37. 

77 60. Them seejued. It seemed to them. Note the use of the old 
dative. Cf. 48 9. 

78 67. Bred of siim77ier''s heat. A punning allusion to the surname of 
the Ladies Somerset. See the note on Prothalamion, p. ^6 and note, 14 8. 

78 75. Sense. Possibly here plural as above, 11 3. 

78 95. Conplement. Union, marriage. 

79 100. Assoil. Remove, set free. 

79 110. Undersong. Burden, refrain; cf. Shep. Cal., Aug., 128. 
79 121. Shend. Injure by outshining. Cf. the use of stain, 12 10. 

79 128. Afy most kindly nurse. This little autobiographical * aside ' 
is managed most deftly, and is precious from a poet so allegorical, if not 
enigmatic, in his allusions as Spenser. 

80 135. Whilom. Once, at one time. The -otn is here a dative 
plural termination used adverbially. Sh. Gram.y § 137. 

80 145. A noble peer, Great England^ s glory. Robert Devereux, 
Earl of Essex, in August, 1596, just returned, the hero of the expedition 
against Spain, in which Cadiz was captured by Essex personally and 
the Spanish navy badly crippled. 

81 166. To the river's open viewing. To the open or uninterrupted 
view of the river. 

81 169. Featiire. Shape, form. 

81 174. Baldrick. Belt. Here the belt or circle of the zodiac. 

81 177. Tide. Time. Cf. 46 42. 

81. The Talent. "The quaint, solemn beauty of The 7a/^«^," re- 
marks Mr. Waddington, editor of English Sonnets by Poets of the Past, 
p. 225, "might have added another leaf to the wreaths that encircle 
the brows of Donne and George Herbert." 

81 3. Which. Cf. Barnes' use of which for who above, 56 3, 6, 10. 

82. Tell vie where. In N'otes and Queries, Ser. IV, XII, 304, the fol- 
lowing parallel is noted : " For as by Basill the Scorpion is engendred, 
and by the meanes of the same hcarb destroyed : so love which by time 



246 NOTES. 

and fancie is bred in an idle head, is by time and fancie banished from 
the heart." Lyly, Euphues, 1579, ed. Arber, p. 298. This song has 
been referred {Quarterly Rev., CXXXIV, 124) to an Italian original of 
Jacopo da Lentino, beginning : 

Amore e un desio, che vien dal core. 

82 1. Fancy. Love. 

82 2. Or in the heart or in the head. Like whether . . . whether, an 
Elizabethan idiom of frequent occurrence. See Sh. Gra7n., § 136. 

82 5. Eyes. It is possible that the true reading is eye to rime with 
reply above, and that the mistake has arisen through a kind of attraction 
to the succeeding rimes. 

82. Barley's New Book of Tabliture is extremely rare. It is not 
mentioned by Rimbault or Oliphant. Tabliture means writing in score. 

82 1. Those eyes that set. It will be noticed that the construction of 
this sonnet is quite a piece of artifice. The four words eyes, hairs, 
hands and wit are spread out, as it were, successively, each briefly 
characterized, and then gathered back into one in the question : Then 
Love be judge, etc. These words are again spread forth in the same 
order, with a characterization, and lastly each is apostrophized. See 
the same method, even more complicated, in Breton's sonnet, p. 66. 

83 5. What heart may there withstand. Bullen reads iriay therewith 
stand. 

83 7. Doth. Cf. 25 37. 

83 11-14. O eyes that pierce. Mr. Bullen especially praises the last 
lines of this sonnet as representative of " the great Elizabethan style." 
Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, revised ed., p. xxiv. 

83 12. That wear a royal crown. It has been inferred that this son- 
net may have been originally addressed to Elizabeth {Percy Soc. Pub., 
XIII, 37); but assuredly the Queen's auburn locks could not be desig- 
nated " hairs of night." 

83. Brown is my love. The titles of Yonge's two collections show 
that the words as well as the music were originally Italian. 

83. Shakespeare, Sonnets. " Upon the sonnets," says Mr. Swinburne, 
" such a preposterous pyramid of presumptuous commentary has long 
since been reared by the Cimmerian speculation and Boeotian 'brain- 
sweat ' of sciolists and scholiasts, that no modest man will hope, and no 
wise man will desire, to add to the structure or subtract from it one 
single brick of proof or disproof, theorem or theory." (A Study of 
Shakespeare, p. 62.) Without raising the question of modesty or wis- 
dom, we may agree with several authorities (of whom Dowden and 



NOTES. 247 

Fleay are among the latest) that few, if any, of Shakespeare's sonnets 
were written before 1592 or 1593, that Daniel was probably Shake- 
speare's master in this form of poetry, and that the greater number, as 
published in the ed. of 1609, were in existence when Meres, in 1598, 
mentioned " Shakespeare's sugared sonnets amongst his private friends." 
As to the autobiographic nature of this species of the Elizabethan lyric, 
the reader is referred to the Introduction of this volume. Mr. Fleay 
finds a greater number of parallels between the sonnets of Shakespeare 
and Drayton than between the sequences of any other two Elizabethan 
sonneteers. (See his Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 
s. V.) See also Dr. Isaac's paper on the indebtedness of Shakespeare 
to Daniel, note on Delia, p. 49 above. 

83 XIX 1. Devourijig Time. Cf. Barnes' sonnet dedicatory to the 
Earl of Northumberland (Arber's Garner, v, 483) : 

Your thrice noble house : which shall outwear 
Devouring time itself. 

See also Z. Z. Z., i, i, 4. 

84 5. Fleets. Y ox fleetest. There are a number of these cases of the 
second person singular in -ts in Shakespeare, which may be explained 
on the score of euphony, with a possible influence of the northern inflec- 
tion of this person and number in -s. Cf. Drummond's use of this 
latter, 179 10 and 181 l, and see Sh. Gram., § 340 and the examples 
there. 

84 XXIX 5-9. Wishing itie like, etc. "The modesty evinced in the 
wishes for the features and faculties of other persons has, in such a 
man especially, been deservedly admired ; and the pause and the change 
of tone, full of triumphant emotion, at the words, ' Haply I think on 
thee,' produce the utmost effect of masterliness in art from the perfec- 
tion of the feeling." (Leigh Hunt, The Book of the Sonnet, I, 156.) 

84 12. Sings hymns. Cf. the song in Cymbeline, p. 147 below, and 
I.yly's Alexander and Cajnpaspe, v, i. 

84 13-14. Cf. Drummond, quoted by Main, E?tglish Sojtnets, p. 285 : 

From this so high transcending rapture springs 
That I, all else defaced, not envy kings. 

84 XXXIII 2. Flatter the monntain tops. Leigh Hunt says that he 
is not sure that he has " not extracted this sonnet solely on account of 
the magnificent second line." {The Book of the Sonnet, -f^. 162.) "Loftily 
beautiful " are the words which he elsewhere applies to the first two 
lines. 



248 NOTES. 

84 4. Gilding pale streams. Q.i. King JoJni/xix, i, 77-80: 

The glorious sun 
Stays in its course and plays the alchemist, 
Turning with splendor of his precious eye 
The meagre cloddy earth to gUttering gold. 

{Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Dowden.) 

85 6. Rack. *' The winds in the upper region (which move the 
clouds above, which we call rack, and are not perceived below) pass 
without noise."' (Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, cent, ii, § 11 5, quoted in Clark 
and Wright's Hanil., ii, 2, 469.) 

85 12. Region cloud. See note above. Region = sky (as often). 

85 14. Stain. The play upon the two meanings of the word is 
apparent. Cf. 12 10, 41 4, 57 6. 

85 LX 5. A^ativity, once in the main of light. " When a star has 
risen and entered on the full stream of light " is Palgrave's explanation 
of this astrological term. 

85 7. Crooked eclipses. " Formerly, periods of eclipse, especially of 
the moon, were held to be peculiarly unpropitious for the conception or 
execution of lawful, and favorable to evil enterprises." (Main.) 

85 9. Flourish. Blossom, perfect growth. Cf. 49 5, 51 21. 

85 10. Delves the parallels iti beauty's brow. Cf. Sh.'s Son. ii : 

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow 
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field. 

85 LXXI 1. No longer piourn, etc. " It is not easy," exclaims Leigh 
Hunt, " to call to mind anything more . . . deeply and affectingly beau- 
tiful." And further down of the lines beginning: For I love you so: 
" All the tears, tenderness, and generosity of the truest love are in that 
passage." {The Book of the Sonnet, p. 77.) 

86 6. Writ. Wrote. Cf. 87 14. 

86 8. On me. Of me or about me. See Sh. Gram., § 181. 
86 CVI 2. Wights. Mortals, beings, cf. 23 4, 177 3. 
86 7. Antique pen. Cf. 84 10. 

86 8. Master. Possess as a master; cf. Hen. V, ii, 4, 137 (Dowden). 
86 9. So all their praises, etc. Cf. Constable's Sonnets from Todd's 
MS., vii (not Diana as Professor Dowden has it) : 

Miracle of the world, I never will deny 
That former poets praise the beauty of their days ; 
But all those beauties were but figures of thy praise, 
And all those poets did of thee but prophesy. 



NOTES. 249 

86 13. We, which. Cf. 56 3. 

86 CXVI 1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds. " It would be 
difficult to cite a finer passage of moral poetry than this description of 
the master passion. How true and how ennobling to our nature ! We 
at once recognize in it the abstraction of that conception whith has 
found a dwelling and a name in the familiar forms of Desdemona, 
Juliet, Imogen, Cordelia, of Romeo and of Othello too." (Dowden, as 
above, p. i6o.) 

86 2. Impediments. This word, which Hunt considers " very 
prosaic," Professor Dowden explains as the technical term of the mar- 
riage ceremony of the Booh of Common Prayer. 

86 2-3. Love is not love which alters. Cf. Lear, i, i, 241. 

86 4. With the rem,over to remove. Cf. Son. xxv, 13, 14; and see 
note 14 8. 

86 5-6. An ever-fixed mark. Cf . Coriolanus, v, 3, 74 : 

Like a great sea-mark, standing in every flaw, 
And saving those that eye thee. 

87 7. The star . . . whose worth* s unknown although his height be 
taken. " As the star, over and above what can be ascertained concern- 
ing it for our guidance at sea, has unknowable occult virtue and influence, 
so love beside its power of guiding us, has incalculable potencies." 

87 9. Time's fool. The sport of Time ; and cf. / Hen. IV, v, 4, 81. 
This note and several preceding it I owe to Professor Dowden's excel- 
lent ed. of the Sonnets of Shakespeare. 

87 11. His brief liours. I.e., Time's brief hours. 

87 CXXX 1. My mistress* eye. With this sonnet cf. the large class 
of contemporary poems which abound in rapturous comparisons, Spen- 
ser's Amoretti, ix and xv, Sidney's Sonnets, ix, and Lodge's Phyllis, viii, 
pp. 62-64, 11-14, 59. 

87 11. Go. Walk. Cf. 62 26. 

87. Richard Bartifield was an Oxford man and friend to Thomas 
Watson. He appears to have given up authorship early, in 1605, and 
to have retired to the life of a country gentleman. Interest attaches 
to Barnfield by reason of the long-standing confusion of some of his 
poems with Shakespeare's. In 1599 a piratical publisher, W. Jaggard, 
included both of the poems of the text in a collection entitled The Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim, placing on the title-page the words, "by William 
Shakespeare." The poems are undoubtedly Barnfield's. A resumi of 
the arguments on this topic will be found in Arber's reprint of Barn- 



250 NOTES. 

field's Poems, pp. xix onward. Poems in Divers Humors was appended 
to the same author's Encomion of Lady Peciinia. 

88 5. Dowland. See note on p. 1 1 1 . 

88 7. Conceit. Thought, mvention. Cf. 32 13. 

88 12, Whenas. When. Cf. 59 17, 110 19. 

88. As it fell up07i a day. In Englaitd'' s Helicon this " ode " appears 
truncated at v. 28 with the addition of two verses for conclusion : 

Even so, poor bird, like thee, 
None alive will pity me. 

Mr. Swinburne calls Barnfield " our first-born Keats," probably in allu- 
sion to his proficiency in the heptasyllabic trochaics of this poem, a 
favorite measure with Keats. (See A Study of Shakespeare, p. 65.) 
88 10. Up-till. Up against. 

88 17. So lively. In so lively a manner. This word, historically an 
adverb, has come to be used only as an adjective. 

89 23. King Pandion, in the ancient story, was father to Philomela. 
89 24. Lapt in lead. In allusion to the ancient custom of rolling or 

lapping the dead in a sheet of lead. 

89 27. Whilst as. Whilst that, or simply whilst. 

89 41. Addict. Addicted. 

Mr. Arber {Barnfield, p. xxiii) finds the chief characteristics of Barn- 
field in "his abundant vocabulary," and his "constant strain after 
novelty " : no very distinguishing traits these for his day. 

90. Giles Farnaby flourished towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, 
arranging much for the virginals. His musical style is described as 
florid like that of Dr. Bull. {Die. Nat. Biog., s. v.) The full title of his 
work runs: Canzonets to four voices, with a song in eight parts. 

90. fohn Wilbye is called the " first of madrigal writers " by Oliphant 
{Mus. Madr., p. 174); the term is apparently applied to his skill as a 
composer, not to priority in time. The work from which these verses 
have been taken was W^ilbye's First Set of Madrigals ; he published a 
Second Set m 1609. Both have been reprinted in score by the Musical 
Antiquarian Society. 

90 1. Lady when I behold. These lines are translated from an Italian 
original (Oliphant). Lodge had translated them less successfully five 
years earlier in his The Life and Death of William Longbeard (ed. Hun- 
terian Club, p. 21): 

When I admire the rose 
That nature makes repose 
In you the best of many, 
More fair and blest than any, 



NOTES. 251 

And see how curious art 
Hath decked every part ; 
I think with doubtful view 
Whether you be the rose, or the rose is you. 

90 5. Hardly. With difficulty. 

90. George Chapman, despite the genuine force and genius that 
must always secure him a high place among the great names of his age, 
discloses in his works, to a surprising degree, the confusion of imagery, 
the prolixity of thought and the tedious diffuseness, if beauty, of expres- 
sion which characterized the poetic school of his youth and the later, 
lesser Spenserians. Well may Mr. Swinburne, who has written judi- 
ciously and eloquently of Chapman {Oji George Chapman's Poetical atid 
Dramatic Works, prefixed to the Works of Chapman, London, 1875), 
say : " He enters the serene temples and handles the holy vessels of 
Hellenic art with the stride and the grasp of a high-handed and high- 
minded barbarian." On the other hand Chapman's moral power and 
his deep and manifold learning court a comparison with Jonson, although 
the older poet more frequently runs into curious and intricate pedantry, 
and never wholly acquired by his long and intimate contact with the 
classics, as did Jonson, a clear and unquestionable English style. "■ The 
name of Chapman," says Mr. Swinburne in the same essay, p. lix, 
" should always be held great ; yet must it always at first recall the 
names of greater men. For one who thinks of him as the author of his 
best play or his loftiest lines of gnomic verse, a score will at once remem- 
ber him as the translator of Homer or the continuator of Marlowe." 

90. Epithalamion Teratos. Mr. Fleay thinks that Chapman's con- 
tinuation of Marlowe's Hero and Leander was written as early as 1 594-5 
{The English Drama, I, 52). A part of the Argument of the fifth, the 
Sestiad containing this Epithalamion, runs thus : 

She [Hero] sends for two betrothed lovers 
And marries them, .... 



She makes a feast, at which appears 

The wild nymph Teras, that still bears 

An ivory lute, tells ominous tales, 

And sings at solemn festivals. {Chapman, ed. 1875, p. 81.) 

91 6. Tire. Attire, dress. 

91 9-12. Love calls to arms, etc. Cf. with these lines, which are very 
effective in their martial tread, Ben Jonson's refrain from the Epitha- 
lamion of The Masque of Hymen : 

'Tis Cupid calls to arm 
And this his last alarm. 



252 NO TES. 

91 13. Thy velvet hand. Cf. Lyly's ''Sleep with velvet hand'' 21 3. 

91 14. Day's outfacing face. Cf. note on 14 8. 

91 23. Her balls of discord. Day is here likened to Eris witli her 
apple of discord, which brought trouble among the gods ; as day by 
returning will bring separation to the lovers. 

91 25-28. Day is abstracted here, etc. Day is here resolved into its 
essence, light or radiance, and here variously displayed in the three 
beautiful forms of Hero and the bridal pair, Alcmane and Mya. Cf. 
Lodge's comparison of Rosalind's hair " to the clear in highest sphere," 
30 1 ; and for the proper names see the Fifth Sestiad of Hero and 
Leander (ed. 1875, P- ^2)' 

Hero to shorten time with merriment 
For young Alcmane and bright Mya sent 
Two lovers that had long craved marriage rites 
At Hero's hands, etc. 

91 28. Lei Thetis thrice refine thee. The address is to Day, which is 
exhorted to be thrice refined by immersion in the sea before returning 
to shine upon the bride and bridegroom, Thetis the Nereid being taken 
to represent the sea. 

92. Munday and Chettlc. For the former see lOS, for the latter, 71. 

92. Robin Hood's dirge. I read from Hazlitt's Dodsley, VIII, 249. 
Cf. The Song of Robin Hood and his Huntsmen in Metropolis Coronata, 
1 61 5, which Mr. Eullen considers sufficient to prove Munday's author- 
ship of this poem. {^Lyrics from Elizabethan Rojnances, p. xviii.) The 
title of the play from which the song of the text is taken is an instance 
of the popular identification of real persons with fictitious characters. 
There were many plays of this class. 

92 5. Primer. Book of devotion. 

92 8. Flowers. Dissyllabic. Cf. 21 13. 

92. Three Melt's Song. A song or catch for three voices. The 
songs of this play w^ere not originally printed in place. I omit the stage 
directions as to repetition ; including, however, the line Close with the 
tenor boy, which, by reason of the rime, seems part of the poem. Mr. 
Fleay absurdly doubts that this play is Dekker's, and refers its earliest 
performance to 1597. {Efigl. Drama, I, 125.) I read from Pearson's 
Dekker's Plays, 1 87 3. 

92 5. Troll the bowl. Pass round, circulate. 

92 7. Saint Hugh was the patron saint of shoemakers. 

92 13. Ring compass. Perhaps show the range or compass of your 
voice by singing out. 



NOTES. 253 

93. Patient Grissell. Chettle and Haughton collaborated with 
Dekker in this play. If any one doubts that these songs are Dekker's, 
let him compare them with the manner of Dekker's undoubted work on 
pp. 44-45- 

93. O Sweet Content. Assuredly one of the most perfect and musical 
lyrics in the language. Note the effect produced by the various repeti- 
tions, and cf. in this respect the poems just cited above. 

93 10. Hey nofiny ttonny. There are many instances of these mean- 
ingless refrains in the poetry of the day. In some cases, as in this, the 
poet appears to have reached the limit of coherent words and bursts 
into song of very joy. Cf. 52 4, 96 2, 123 6. 

94. A Passion, etc. I read from Grosart's ed. of Essex, Fuller 
Worthies'' Miscellanies., IV, 95. "This 'passion' is said to have been 
enclosed in a letter to the Queen from Ireland in 1599." (Hannah's 
Courtly Poets, p. 177.) 

94 6. Hips and haws. The fruit of the wildrose and of the hawthorn. 

94 7. Still. Ever. Cf. 14 9. 

95. As You Like It. It would seem almost as if Shakespeare had 
deliberately set himself to outdo the beauty and spirit of the lyrics of 
Lodge's Rosalind, the original of the story of this play. See pp. 29-33 
above. 

95 10. Live V the sun. Live out-of-doors, in freedom. 

The omission of Jaques' parody of this song, which follows in the 
play, is no departure from the purpose of this book to print only whole 
poems. 

95 5. Thou art not seen. I would commend a perusal of what the 
commentators have done to obscure the meaning of this phrase to any 
who would know to what depths the genus Shakespearian can descend. 
See Dr. Furness' Variorum ed. of As You Lrke It, p. 131. 

95 7. Holly. An emblem of mirth. (Halliwell.) 

96 14. Waters warp. " Either the change produced in them by the 
action of frost or the bending and ruffling of their surface caused by 
the wintry wind." (Wright.) 

96. It was a lover. An early tune for this ditty is printed in Dr. 
Furness' Variorum ed. of this play, p. 262. See also Chappell, I, 114. 

96 4. Ring time is Steevens' conjecture for rang time, a correction 
borne out by a MS. dated 1639, from which the music noted above was 
taken. 

97. John Donne. " Educated at both universities and at Lincoln's 
Inn, a traveller, a man of pleasure, it has been thought a soldier, and 
probably for a time a member of the Roman Church ; he seems, just 



254 NOTES. 

before reaching middle life, to have experienced some religious change, 
took orders, became a famous preacher, and [was] made Dean of St. 
Pauls." Such is Mr. Saintbury's summary. {Elizabethan Literature, 
p. 147.) Donne was held in the highest estimation among his contem- 
poraries. Jonson's praise of him is well known, and excellent Izaak 
Walton loved the man and revered his memory. Drummond esteemed 
" Donne, among the Anacreontic lyrics [/'.<?., lyrists], . . . second to 
none, and far from all second." {Conversations with Ben Jonson^ Appen- 
dix, p. 50.) The best account of this remarkable man is to be found in 
Dr. Jessop's article in the Dictionary of National Biography, s. v. From 
it I quote the following : " He [Donne] seems to have had an extraor- 
dinary power of attracting others to himself ; there is a vein of peculiar 
tenderness which runs through the expressions in which his friends 
speak of him, as if he had exercised over their affection for him an 
unusual and indefinable witchery." 

Donne's lyrics were in everybody's hands long before they were 
printed, and belong to the last decade of Elizabeth's reign. On this 
subject and on Donne's innovations of style see the Introduction, § 2. 
In the text I have followed Dr. Grosart, who prints mainly from the 
Cosens MS. In a few cases, however, all noted below, I have preferred 
other readings of the early editions. 

The reader should observe that notwithstanding their extreme subtlety 
of thought in many places, the language of these poems of Donne is 
singularly clear and direct. Not only is his vocabulary, as a rule, free 
from the pedantry and the fantasticality of his age, but I shall venture 
to say that it would be difficult to find a meaningless inversion in his 
poetry. 

97 2. Mandrake root. The root of a plant of the genus matidr agora, 
which was popularly supposed to shriek on being pulled up. The 
resemblance of its forked structure to the human body is probably the 
ground of this superstition. {Centiny Dictionary, s. v.) 

97 10. Born strange sights to see. In accord with the popular super- 
stition, some are born with power to see things supernatural. 

97 24. A7td last till. " And last so till " is the reading of the ed. of 

1635- 

98 3. One other I read on the same authority for ajiother of the 
Cosens MS. 

98 9. Partial. Trisyllabic, thus riming with//// and all. Cf. 102 23, 
104 8, 116 29, and Sh. Gram., § 479. 

99 32. To join them. This is the reading of the Steph. MS. and the 
older edd., and seems altogether preferable to that of the ed. of 1669, to 



NOTES. 255 

join us, which Dr. Grosart defends. The antithesis lies in the contrast 
between changing {i.e., exchanging) hearts and joining them. 

99 7. To use myself. To practise or habituate myself. Cf. 98. 

99 8. By feigned deaths to die. The Stephens MS. reads : " Thus by 
feigned death to die." 

99 13. Fear not me. Have no fears about me. Cf. 100 36. 

100 21. Come bad chance. Subjunctive. 
100 27. Unkifidly kind. Cf. 14 8. 

100 33. Divining. Foreboding. Cf. 119 16 and forethink in the 
verse below. 

100 35. Destiny ?nay take thy part. I.e., Destiny may agree with thy 
foreboding. 

100 8. Make dreams truths. True is the reading of the Cosens MS. 

100 2. Broke. Broken. See Sh. Gram., § 343. 

101 19-20. / must confess, etc. Well may Mr. Saintsbury underscore 
these lines, containing as they do the finest compliment ever paid by 
lover to his beloved. 

101. The Message. Note the freedom of the phrasing of this poem, 
which may be compared in this respect and in its perfect directness, 
with the Song above, p. 99. 

101 8. Still. Forever. 

102. Upon Parting from his Mistress. This poem, which is probably 
the most frequently quoted of Donne's, is often entitled A Valediction 
forbidding Mourning. 

102 6. Tear-foods . . . sigh-tempests. Cf. 13 5, and see note there. 
102 11. Trepidation. A motion which the Ptolemaic system of 

astronomy ascribes to the firmament to account for certain phenomena, 
really due to the motion of the axis of the earth. {Cefit. Die.) Cf. 
Milton, P. L. iii, 483. The singular is preferable to the plural of the 
Stephejis MS. 

102 14. Sense. Mere sensation. 

102 15. For that. Because. 

102 16. Elemented it. Composed it, were its elements. 

103 23. Expafision. Donne generally makes two syllables of the 
termination -io7t, riming with words like one, alone, gone. Cf. partial 
above, 98 9 ; 104 8, 125 l, 4, 126 13, 16 ; and Jonson's verse, 116 29. 

103 25-36. If they be two, etc. It was the figure of these stanzas 
which inspired Dr. Johnson's well-known passage on " the metaphysical 
poets," a phrase which the Doctor borrowed from a hint of Dryden's. 
{Discourse on the Original and Progress of Satire, Cassell's National 
Library, No. 1 51, pp. i i-i 5.) " To the following comparison of a man 



256 NOTES. 

that travels and his wife that stays at home with a pair of compasses, it 
may be doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has better claim." 
{Lives of the English Poets, Cowley, ed. Tauchnitz, p. 25.) This deliver 
ance is worthy of a place beside the still more famous strictures on 
Lycidas. This figure of the compass is said to have been suggested by 
the ^'i??ipressa of old John Heywood — Donne's maternal grandfather." 
There are several parallels of its use by Donne himself and by his con- 
temporaries. See Donne's Obsequies to the Lord Harringtofi's Brother 
(Riverside ed., p. 127): — 

O soul ! O circle, why so quickly be 

Thy ends, thy birth, and death closed up in thee ? 

Since one foot of thy circle still was placed 

In heaven, the other might have securely paced 

In the most large extent through every path 

Which the whole world, or man, the abridgement, hath ! 

Also Jonson's Epistle to Sclden (Riverside ed., p. 167), beginning: "You 
that have been Ever at home" ; and Carew's To Celia upon Love's Ubi- 
quity, ed. 1870, p. 159. I am indebted for these parallels to the Thesis 
of my late student, now my colleague, Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh, A Study 
of the Poetry of fohn Donne. 

103 4. Which. Cf. 56 3. 

104 14. I^ove, if I love who loves not me. The Cosens MS. reads 
Love, till I lov^d her that lov''d ?ne. 

104 18. Purlieu. Land added to the royal forest by unlawful en- 
croachments; and hence here domain usurped, and not justly Love's. 

104 20. Ungod. Cf. 64 4. 

104 24. Leave loving. Cease to love. Cf. 17 29, 51 6. 

104 26. Which, since she loves before, i.e., already loves another, I am 
loath to have her love me, as in that case she would be false to her 
other love, and " falsehood is worse than hate." 

104 1. Whoever comes. Cf. with this poem The Rcliquc, in which the 
' subtle wreath ' is again alluded to in the words : — 

"A bracelet of bright liair about the bone." 

We may agree with Mr. Saintsbury that the latter poem, " as a whole, 
is inferior to this." 

104 6. Unto heaven. The Cosens MS. reads Then to heaven. 

105 9. The sinewy thread my brain lets fall, i.e., the spinal cord with 
its branching nerves. 

105 20. Others'. Other is the readinc; of the Cosens MS. 



NOTES. 257 

105 23. Brave )y. Defiance, or daring, in contrast with hninilUy 
above. 

105. He7iry Constable was a Roman Catholic gentleman, who lived 
much in exile by reason of his religion. He was highly esteemed in his 
day, Bolton in his Hypercritica (ed. Haselwood, II, 250) observing that 
he " was a great master in the English tongue : nor had any gentleman 
of our nation, a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of conceit." I 
have preferred two little pastoral lyrics to Constable's sonnets, for 
which he appears to me to have been somewhat overrated. Both of 
these poems were first printed in England's Helicon. 

105. Damelus' Song. This poem is set to music in Pilkington's 
Eirst Book of Songs and Airs, 1605. 

106 18. 1)1 requite. In requital. 
106 4. Wanton. Sport, play. 
106 5. Herd. Shepherd. 

106. Corydon's Sicpplication. This poem does not seem to have 
been printed before its appearance in England's Helicon. For Breton, 
see above, p. 27. 

106 1. Silly. Simple. Cf. 6 22. 

107 5-6. Power . . . hast got Upon. Cf. Anthony and Cleopatra, i, 3, 
23 : "I have no power upon you " ; we should say over you. See Sh. 
Gram., § 191. 

108. Anthony Munday was an actor, stationer's apprentice, " the 
Pope's scholar at the Seminary at Rome," a messenger to her Majesty's 
chamber about 1 584-1 592, city pageant maker, general writer and pam- 
phleteer. That he was not without esteem among his contemporaries is 
shown by the fact that Meres alludes to him as "our best plotter" 
{Palladis Tamia, ed. Haselwood, p. 154), whilst Webbe (^ Discourse of 
English Poetry, ed. Haselwood, p. 36) writes thus : " Anthony Munday, 
an earnest traveller in this art, and in whose name I have seen very 
excellent works, among which surely, the most exquisite vein of a witty, 
poetical head is showed in the sweet sobs of shepherds and nymphs : 
a work well worthy to be viewed and to be esteemed as very rare 
poetry." Mr. Bullen found great difficulty in believing Munday capable 
of anything so good as these two poems signed, "The Shepherd Tonie" 
and the Dirge for Robin Hood, above p. 92. But the discovery of an 
excellent song on the same redoubtable woodsman in an unquestioned 
Masque of Munday's has brought about a complete recantation. See 
the Introd. to Etigland's Helicon, p. xvii, and Lyrics from Elizabethan 
Romances, p. xviii. There is an early copy of this poem in Harl. MS. 
6910 (Bullen). 



258 NOTES. 

108 3. More fine in trip. Daintier in step. 

108 13. Curster tkafi the bear by kind. More shrewish or vixenish in 
disposition than the bear. 

108 15. Glib. Smooth, slippery. 

108. Beauty sat bathing. The fact that this poem also appears in 
Munday's translation, Primaleon of Greece, 1619, the poetry of which is 
not in the original, establishes the identity of Munday with "the 
Shepherd Tonie " of England's Helicon. 

109. Canzo7i. For the form, canzon, consult Introduction, p. Iviii. 
This poem is signed with Bolton's name in full. There are four other 
poems in England's Helicoii signed " E. B.," doubtless by the same 
author. Bolton, who was a man of very great learning, is now chiefly 
remembered for his treatise, Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgment for 
writing or reading our Histories, etc., about 1610, notable for its many 
acute comments on contemporary writers. 

110. A Palifiode. Not here a recantation or retraction as the term 
is usually employed, but a song which goes back or returns upon itself 
by means of a repetition of ideas. The first four lines set forth four 
successive comparisons which are gathered into application in the fol- 
lowing three lines and clinched, so to speak, in the eighth line. The 
original themes are then again set forth with new variation, and again 
briefly applied in a concluding couplet. The second stanza works back- 
ward. Inverting the original order of the four themes it again rings 
successive variations upon them, this time in a larger scope, shows the 
relation of the themes to each other, and in the same number of lines 
and with similar stanzaic structure, concludes with the couplet of 
application. Cf. with this the 'sonnets' of Breton and Barley on pp. 
66 and 82, and the notes thereon. See also Beaumont's poem begin- 
ning, " Like to the falling of a star," p. 170. 

110 19. Wheuas. When. Cf. 59 17. 

111 24. Vary. Variegation, change or play of color. Cf. Z<?ar, ii, 2,85. 
Ill 25. Rathe. Early. Cf. Lycidas, 142. 

Ill 27-28. So as. Cf. 20 1-2 and see Sh. Gram., § 275. 

111. John Dowlajid was "a rare lutist," the height of whose contem- 
porary reputation may be judged by Barnfield's sonnet on p. 87. Dow- 
land was Bachelor of Music of both Universities and lutenist at one 
time to the King of Denmark. He resided much abroad. His earliest 
book appeared in 1597, his latest in 161 2. The authorship of the words 
of Dowland's songs is, as in most of these cases, unknown. 

111. I saw my Lady weep. Entitled His Lady's Grief \n the reprint 
of the Percy Society, XIII, 69. 



NOTES. 259 

112. Thomas Weelkes \i2iS organist of Winchester College in 1600, 
and of Chichester Cathedral in 1608. His earliest collection appeared 
in 1597, his latest in 1608. Oliphant esteems him the best composer of 
his age. The verses of his books "are always bright, cheerful and 
arch." (Bullen.) 

112. Thou senfst to me. This poem was apparently first printed 

by Dr. Grosart in his ed. of Donne (11, 254) and by him ascribed to that 

poet. It cannot be his. These additional stanzas appear in that 

edition : — 

The heart I sent thee had no stain 

It was entire and sound ; 
But thou hast sent it back again 

Sick of a deadly wound. 

O, Heavens, how wouldst thou use a heart 

That should rebellious be, 
Since thou hast slain mine with a dart 

That so much honored thee. 

Mr. Saintsbury calls these stanzas "a feeble amplification," and con- 
siders the earlier stanzas "less in the style of Donne than in that of 
Ben." {Seventeenth Century Lyrics, p. 305.) 

112 1. A heart was sound. The Oxford MS. reads "a heart was 
crowned." 

113. Ben Jonson. " Vigor of thought, purity of phrase, condensed 
and polished rhetoric, refined and appropriate eloquence, studious and 
serious felicity of expression, finished and fortunate elaboration of verse, 
might have been considered as qualities sufiicient to secure a triumph 
for the poet in whose work all these excellent attributes are united and 
displayed ; and we cannot wonder that younger men who had come 
within the circle of his personal influence should have thought that the 
combination of them all must ensure to their possessor a place above 
all his possible compeers. But among the humblest and most devout 
of these prostrate enthusiasts was one who had but to lay an idle and 
reckless hand on the instrument which hardly would answer the touch 
of the master at all, and the very note of lyric poetry as it should 
be . . . responded on the instant to the instinctive intelligence of his 
touch. ... As we turn from Wordsworth to Coleridge, as we turn from 
Byron to Shelley, so do we turn from Jonson to Herrick." (Swin- 
burne, A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 97.) See Introduction, § i. 

113 4. Division. A rapid musical phrase generally sung on a single 
syllable and with one breath. Cf. / Hen. IV, iii, i, 211. 

113 10. Notice the successful onomatopoeia of this line. 



260 NOTES. 

113 10. To clear. To make bright, lighten. 

114. His Supposed Mistress. The germ of this song can be traced 
to Martial's Epigratns, i, 58, quoted by Bell {Sojigs of the Dratnatists, p. 

113):- 

Qualem, Flacce, velim quaeris, nolimve puellam ? 

Nolo nimis facilem, difficilem nimis. 
Illud, quod medium est, atque inter utrumque, probamus. 
Nee volo, quod cruciat ; nee volo, quod satiat. 

114 ]. Discover. Make known, disclose. 

114 9. Neither. Monosyllabic. Cf. v. 20 below and see Sh. Gram., 
§466. 

114 11-20. Professor Winchester reminds me of the wonderful real- 
ization of the ideal of this stanza by Shakespeare in the " infinite 
variety " of his Cleopatra. 

114 13. Froward. Perverse, willful. 

114 14. Swowning. A form of swooning. 

114 16. Purely Jealous. Out and out jealous. Because jealousy is 
an evidence of love, and would prove her constancy in moments of 
indifference. See the verse below. 

114 18-19. Then only constant, etc. That she should be constant 
only when I crave her is a virtue that should not save her, i.e., keep her 
mine. I would have her constant at all times, even when I am indiffer- 
ent and do not demand her love. 

114 19. Delicates. Charms, allurements. 

115. Epode. This poem originally appeared in Love's Martyr or 
Rosalinds Complaint. Allegorically shadotuiftg the Truth of Love, in the 
constant Fate of the Phoejtix and Turtle. A poem . . . now first trans- 
lated out of the venerable Italian Torquato Caeliano by Robert Chester, 
... To these are added some new compositions of several modern writers, 
whose 7iames are subscribed to their several Works ; upon the first subject, 
viz.: The Phoenix and Turtle. Among these "best and chiefest of out 
modern writers," as they are elsewhere called, are Jonson, Marston, 
Chapman and Shakespeare. This work has been reprinted among the 
Publications of the Neza Shakspere Society, Series VIII, No. 2. The 
Epode was later included in The Forest, folio ed. of Jonson's works, 
1616. 

115 1. State. Status, equilibrium. 

115 7. A guard . . . to watch and ward. Cf. a passage in Jonson's 
Discoveries, Athenceum Press Series, p. 13, and note p. 96, where a 
similar passage is referred to Plutarch, Moralia {de Garrulitate). 

115 13. Affections. Feelings, emotions; Cf. v. 21 below, 207 25. 



NOTES. 261 

lis 16. Close, t/ie close cause. Cf. 14 8. Close cause, secret cause. 
Cf. 126 22. 

115 23. Larujn. Alarm. 

116 29. Passions. Trisyllabic. Cf. 98 9, 103 23 note, 104 8. 

116 41. IVit/i whom, who rides. Whom refers to blind Desire above, 
V. 37, here again personified, although treated as neuter in v. 39, of 
whence ''tis born. Who = whoever. 

116 44. Prove. Experience. 

116 45-49. That is an essence . . . on lovers. Mr. Swinburne extols 
this passage and vv. 55-65 below. 

116 47. A golden chain, etc. Cf. Jonson's own later use of the same 
figure in Hymencei, a Masque, r6o6 (where a marginal note refers the 
thought to the Iliad, viii, 19): — 

Such was the golden chain let down from Heaven ; 

And not those links more even, 
Than these : so sweetly tempered, so combined 

By union, and refined. 

116 52. Differoit hearts. Hearts opposed to love, or perhaps hearts 
opposed to each other. 

117 63-65. At suggestion of a steep desire . . . happiness. Professor 
Kittredge suggests that a steep desire is here " a precipitous desire, a 
desire into which a man casts himself headlong "; and that suggestion be 
taken, as usually, in 7nalam partein, and as equal to temptation. Hence : 
"Who, on the pinnacle of his joy, would cast himself headlong down 
to destruction for a desire that tempts him ? " Jonson's figure was 
evidently prompted by the temptation of the pinnacle of the temple. 

117 69. Luxury. Lust. 

117 73. Sparrows' wings. The sparrow being especially the bird of 
Venus, the goddess of sensual love. 

117 87-90. He that for love . . . he fears. '• Few of Jonson's many 
moral or gnomic passages are finer, says Mr. Swinburne." {A Study, 
etc., p. 102.) 

118 101. Feature. The form of the whole body, shape. Cf. 81 169. 
118 104. Ho7u only she, etc. How she bestows . . . her love on him 

alone. 

118 113. That knows the weight of guilt. Cf. Seneca, Ilippolytus, i, 
162 f.: — 

Quid poena praesens, consciae mentis pavor ; 

Animusque culpa plenus, et semet timens ? 

Scelus aliqua tutum, nulla securum tulit. 



262 NOTES. 

118. A Book of Airs set forth to be sung to the lute, orpharion and 
bass viol, by Philip Rosseter. The title further informs us that the work 
was printed "by the consent of Thomas Morley," who, after the expira- 
tion of the term of the patent granted to Tallis and Byrd, enjoyed a like 
monopoly of the publication of song-books. (Rimbault, pp. ix-xi.) For 
Rosseter, see below, p. 120 note. 

118. Thomas Ca??ipion was educated at Cambridge and Grey's Inn, 
and published Latin Epigrams in 1 594. His song-books were published 
between the years i6or and 161 7. In 1602 appeared his Observations in 
the Art of English Poesy, in which he attacked "the vulgar and inarti- 
ficial custom of riming," and attempted to prove that English metrical 
composition was faulty in not following the classics. Campion was 
ably answered the next year by Daniel, who expressed his wonder that 
such an attack should proceed from one " whose commendable rimes, 
albeit now himself an enemy to rime, have given heretofore to the world 
the best notice of his worth." The evidence that Campion was not 
only the composer of the music, but the author of the words of the 
poems contained in his song-books, Mr. Bullen finds in Campion's 
address To the Reader, Fourth Book of Airs : " Some words are in these 
books which have been clothed in music by others, and I am content 
they then served their turn : yet give me leave to make use of mine ozvn.''^ 
In a similar address prefixed to the Third Book of Airs : " In these 
English airs I have chiefly aimed to couple my words and notes lovingly 
together; which will be much for him to do that hath not power over 
both.'" (Preface to Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books, p. xi.) For 
further information as to Campion, see Mr. Bullen's ed. of his Works, 
London, 1SS9. 

118. In Iffiagine, etc. I am indebted to Mr. Palgrave's Golden 
Treasury of English Lyrics for this apt title. 

119 11. As thou still black fnust be. Since thou must ever remain 
black. 

119 12. B earns . . . turneth. Cf. 25 37. 
119 16. Divineth. Forebodes. Cf. 100 33. 
119 20. Proved. Approved. 

119. When to her lute. This poem also appeared in Davison's 
Poetical Rhapsody, in the next year. Cf. Herrick's imitation of this 
poem: Up07i Sappho sweetly playing and sweetly singi7tg, (ed. 1869, 1, I 51). 
Herrick may be suspected of having acquired not a little of his melody 
and simple sweetness from his fellow Hedonist, Campion. 

119. Thou art ?iotfair. Mr. Bullen informs us of two other versions 
of this poem. (Bullen's Carnpion, p. 15.) It has also been erroneously 



iVOTES. 263 

assigned to Donne and to Sylvester. Dr. Grosart, who prints every- 
thing he can lay his hands on, includes it, of course, in his ed. of Donne 
(II, 258). 

120 5. Soothe. Flatter. 

120 11. A woman right. A very woman. Cf. M. N. D. iii, 2, 302 : 
" I am a right maid for my cowardice." 

120. When thou ?mist ho?ne. " For strange richness of romantic 
beauty," says Mr. Bullen, this "could hardly be matched outside of the 
sonnets of Shakespeare." {Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books, p. xvi.) 

120 4. White lope. Cf . Propertius : — 

Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum ; 

Pulchra sit, in superis, si licet, una locis. 
Vobiscum est lope, vobiscum Candida Tyro, 

Vobiscum Europe, nee proba Pasiphae, etc. 

120. Philip Rosseter was Master of the Children of the Queen's 
Revels, by patent dated Jan. 4, 1609-10, and, under that authority, 
manager of the play-house in Whitefriars. Besides this work, Rosseter 
published Lessons for Consort: fnade by siuidry excellent authors, etc. 
(Rimbault, Bibliotheca Madrigaliana, p. 17.) 

120. All is Vattity. I assign this to Rosseter — at least as far as 
the music is concerned — on the authority of the words of the table: 
"Songs . . . made by Philip Rosseter." (Bullen's Ca?npio)i, p. 25,) 
Cf. also Rosseter's words in the dedication of this song-book, speaking 
of Campion and his songs : " Yet hath it pleased him ... to grant me 
the impression of part of them : to which I have added an equal number 
of mine own." {/bid., p. 3.) 

121 11. Vain opinion. Mere repute founded on appearances. 

121 12. The world is but a play. A very common sentiment of the 
age, referable perhaps ultimately to Democrates : 6 KSa-fios (tktjv^, 6 ^loi 
■rrdpados. Cf. also Petronius Arbiter {Frag. 10): Quod fere totus mundus 
excerceat histrionem. Cf. As You Like It, ii, 7, 139; Chapman's Bussy 
D^Ambois, i, i; Jonson's JVew Inn, i, i, and Discoveries, Athenaeum 
Press Series, p. 36. 

121. Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute, and con- 
cerned, in conjunction with Philip Rosseter, in the management of the 
theatre in Whitefriars. (Rimbault, as above, p. 18.) Jones, like Cam- 
pion, may have been the author of the words of his songs. 

122 13. Hap. Lot, fate. 

122. O mistress mine. The music of this song is reprinted by Chap- 
pell {Old English Popular Music, I, 103) from Morley's First Book of 



264 NOTES. 

Consort Lessons, 1599- As this work contains only the music, it proves 
nothing as to the possible date of the words of the text. 

122 11. Sweet and twenty. " That is, sweet kisses and twenty of 
them, twenty being used as a round number (cf. Mer. IVives, ii, i, 203); 
or we may read with Theobald sweet, and twenty, making sweet a voca- 
tive. But to read stveet-and-tzuenty as a vocative with Bosweli is certainly 
wrong." {Clarendon Press Sh., Twelfth Night, p. 109.) On the other 
hand Professor Winchester observes that " the Clarendon Press inter- 
pretation obscures the meaning of the next line, ' Youth's a stuff will not 
endure.' Never is youth siveeter than at twenty : yet even then there 
are hints that it cannot long endure." Notice that this poem is trochaic 
throughout, the interjections, O, of the first two lines being redundant. 

122 2. Cypress. There is much ado among the commentators as to 
whether cypress means the customary branches strewn upon the grave, 
the wood of the coffin, or the crape material used for the shroud. The 
first seems the most probable interpretation, in support of which Mr. 
Aldis Wright refers to Drummond's Sonnet xx, Twelfth Night, as above, 
p. 119, and Drufmnond Qd. 1856, p. 27 : — 

Of weeping myrrh the crown is which I crave 
With a sad cypress to adorn my grave. 

122 7. My part . . . share it. "■ Though death is a pa?'t in which 
every one acts his share, yet of all tliese actors no one is so true as I." 
(Johnson.) 

123. Thomas Middleton, a man of good birth and education, was 
sometime a student of Grey's Inn, a productive and highly successful 
playwright and writer of pageants, and, from 1620 to his death, chro- 
nologer of the city of London. Few of the lyrics of Middleton are 
altogether satisfactory ; in all his work, like Massinger and some others, 
Middleton seems to inhabit that dangerous limbo that lies between the 
realms of the highest genius and the ordinary levels of a work-a-day 
world ; making, it is true, an occasional flight into the former, but more 
usually contentedly trudging along the highways of the latter. 

123 7. Owe. Own. Cf. 195 11. 

123 10. Wait. Attend as cup-bearer. 

123 II. Phoebe here one flight did lie. Did Phoebe lie here one 
night. 

124. O Sorrow, Sorrow. This dialogue form was very popular in 
the songs of the time. Cf. 162, 198, 199; and the following stanza 
from a recently discovered play of Heywood's {The Captives or the Lost 
Recovered, 1624, Bullen, Old English Plays)-. — 



NO TES. 265 

O Charity, where art thou tied, 
And now how long hast thou been dead ? 
O many, many, many hundred years. 
In village, borough, town or city 
Remains there yet no grace, no pity ? 
Not in sighs, not in want, not in tears, etc. 

The play from which the song of the text is taken was published in 
1634, with the initials S[amuel] R[owley] on the title. A play called 
The Spanish Fig, which there is reason to believe (cf. Fieay, The 
English Drama, I, 128) was this play, was entered in the Stationers' 
Register in 1631 as Uekker's, and was, apparently, acted in 1602. The 
manner of this song seems to me peculiarly that of Dekker; note 
especially the short, end-stopped lines (see the Ilymji to Fortune, p. 44), 
the brief questions and answers {Sweet Content, p. 93), and the repetition 
of verses 1,15 and 16, with which compare "and bend and bend," 44 10; 
" O sweet, O sweet content," and " Work apace, apace," etc., 39 7-8. 

124 4. Fiirier face. A face more like a fury. Mr. Bullen's emenda- 
tion y«ry'j-yaf^ seems unnecessary. 

124. The SouVs Harmony. This work is a series of 'divine sonnets,' 
in the Elizabethan sense of that term. Dr. Grosart prints — possibly 
on the authority of the original edition — as if he had a continuous 
poem before him. See his ed. of Breton, p. 5. 

125 8. But itt her baby^s clouts. Only in her childish finery. Cf. 
158 37. 

125 14. To thee. For thee, or with a view to thee. See Sh. Gram., 
§ 186. 

125. Ode. This poem has been assigned to Donne on early manu- 
script authority as well as on internal evidence. It was reprinted as an 
unpublished poem of his in The Grove, a collection of verse, 1721. Dr. 
Grosart does not appear to have been aware of the earlier and preferable 
version in the Rhapsody, which I have, of course, followed. (See 
Grosart's Do7ine II, 238.) 

125. Time and absence proves. Cf. 25 :i7. 
125 1. Protestation. Cf. 103 23 note. 

125 9. Affection ground. Ground for affection. Some edd. read 
affection\<! ground. 

126 19. By absence. Cf. with this last stanza, Carew's To his Mistress 
Confined, ed. 1824, p. 133: 

This eclipse 
Shall neither hinder eye nor Ups ; 

For we shall meet 
With our hearts, and kiss, and none shall see 't. 



266 NOTES. 

126 22. Close. Secret. Cf. 115 16. 

126. Joshua Sylvester's contemporary reputation was sufficiently great 
to earn for him the epithet "the silver-tongued." This fame was based 
chiefly upon his translation of Du Bartas His Divine Weeks and Days. 
Drummond regarded Sylvester's translations as "excellent," but added, 
" he is not happy in his inventions : ... his pains are much to be 
praised." (Appendix to Jonson's Conversations, Sh. Soc. Pub., p. 51.) 
This sonnet is signed ' I. S.' in three of the four early editions of the 
Rhapsody. 

\TJ. Madrigal. Neither this nor the succeeding Madrigal have any 
signature affixed. Both appear in a section of the Rhapsody headed : 
Divers Poems by Sundry Authors. 

Yll. My love in her attire. Well may Mr. Saintsbury exclaim : 
" This could not easily be bettered ! " Mr. Bullen refers us for a par- 
allel to the following verses of Clement Marot, which I take the liberty 
of quoting from him : 

DE MADAME YSABEAU DE NAVARRE. 

Qui cuyderoit desguiser Ysabeau 

D'un simple habit, ce seroit grand' simplesse ; 

Car au visage a ne sgay quoi de beau, 

Qui faict juger tousjours qu'elle est princesse : 

Soit en habit de chambriere ou maistresse, 

Soit en drap d'or entier ou decouppe, 

Soit son gent corps de toile enveloppe, 

Tousjours sera sa beaute maintenue ; 

Mais il me semble (ou je suis bien trompe) 

Qu'elle seroit plus belle toute nue. 

Mr. J. M. Thomson, quoted by Mr. Bullen, refers us still further to 
Aristaenetus, Epist. i, and Plato's Charmides, 154 D. (Bullen's ed. 
Poetical Rhapsody, II, 196.) 

127 2. Feater. Neater, nicer. Cf. 76 27. 

127 7. Sith. Since. Cf. 63 13, 179 11. 

127. An Epitaph. Salathiel Pavy acted in Cynthia^s Revels and in 
the Poetaster, 1600 and 1601 ; he probably died in the latter year. 
(Gifford.) Mr. Swinburne justly remarks on this epitaph : " For sweet- 
ness and simplicity, it has few if any equals among his lyrical attempts." 
{A Study of Ben Jonson, p. 97.) 

12811. Filled zodiacs. Full years. 

128 17. So, by error to his fate . . . consented. Cf. Martial, lib. x, 
epig- 53 '- 



NOTES. 267 

Ille ego sum Scorpus, clamosi gloria Circi, 

Plausus, Roma, tui, deliciaeque breves; 
Invida quem Lachesis raptum trieteride nona, 

Dum numerat palmas, credidit esse senem. 

" Jonson must have read inscia for invida., if he did not intentionally 
depart from his original." (Cunningham.) This is but one of innumer- 
able instances of Jonson's ability ^' to convert the substance or riches of 
another poet to his own use," to quote Jonson's own words. {Discoveries, 
AtkencEum Press Series, p. 77.) 

128. How should I. The traditional music of this song is printed 
by Dr. Furness in his Variorum ed. of Hamlet, I, 330. Cf. the song 
attributed to Raleigh, p. 3 of this volume. 

128 :?. Cockle hat. Hat decorated with cockles or scallop-shells, 
which were worn by pilgrims as the badge of their vocation. Cf. 129 l. 

128 4. Shoon. Shoes. An archaic form in Shakespeare's day. 

129 10. Larded. Garnished, set out. 

129. ''Sir Walter Raleigh,^' says Naunton {Fragmenta Regalia, ed. 
Arber, p. 47) "was one, that, it seems, Fortune had picked out of pur- 
pose, of whom to make an example, or to use as her tennis-ball, thereby 
to show what she could do ; for she tossed him up of nothing, and to 
and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that 
wherein she found him, a bare gentleman." See on this ever fascinating 
and typical character Charles Kingsley's suggestive essay. Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 

129 1. Give me my scallop-shell. This poem is one of some half- 
dozen to which attaches the legend that it was "made by Sir Walter the 
night before he was beheaded." More reasonable is the explanation of 
Canon Hannah, who dates the poem "during Raleigh's interval of sus- 
pense in 1603," when the fallen courtier was smarting under the injustice 
and brutality of the King's Attorney, Sir Edward Coke, just after the 
iniquitous trial for high treason. {Poems of Raleigh, y^. 221.) It was 
first printed appended to Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love, a narrative 
poem described as by " An. Sc. Gentleman." Neither external nor inter- 
nal evidence points to this person as the author of The Passionate Man's 
Pilgrimage. It would be difficult to find a poem more truly representa- 
tive of the age of Elizabeth, with its poetical fervor, its beauty and vivid- 
ness of expression, its juggling with words, and its daring mixture of 
things celestial with things mundane. 

129 1. Scallop-shell. Cf. 128 4. 

129 3. Scrip. The pilgrim's pouch or traveling bag. 



268 NOTES. 

129 9. Palmer. A pilgrim who had returned from the Holy Land, 
had fulfilled his vow, and brought a palm branch to be deposited on the 
altar of the parish church. {Cent. Die.) 

129 16. Milken hill. Perhaps hill of plenty, running with milk and 
honey. Cf. wooden, woolen, and the older English ashen treen, etc. 

129 17. A-dry. Cf. 26 9. We still say athirst. 

129 22. Fresh. Freshly. 

130 25. Snckets. Sweetmeats, delicacies of any kind. 

130 -42. Angels. The familiar Elizabethan pun on the popular name 
for the angel-noble, a coin first struck by Edward IV, and varying in 
value from 6j-. 8^. sterling to lo.c Cf. 189 32. 

131 58. The lines : 

Of death and judgment, heaven and hell 
Who oft does think must needs die well, 

usually appended to this poem, are undoubtedly the trite comment of 
some moralist copyist. 

132. Thomas Bateson, " practitioner in the art of music," was organ- 
ist at Chester and Dublin, and the author of two books of madrigals. 
(Oliphant, p. 212.) 

132. Song of the May. Cf. Herrick's beautiful elaboration of this 
familiar theme in Corinna^s Maying. The popular custom of May-day 
can hardly be better described than in the words of the redoubtable 
Puritan, Philip Stubbes in his Anatofny of Abuses, 1595, p. 109: "Against 
May-day, every parish, town, or village assemble themselves, both men, 
women, and children, and, either all together or dividing themselves 
into companies, they go to the woods and groves, some to the hills and 
mountains, . . . where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes ; 
and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch boughs and 
branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But their chiefest 
jewel they bring from thence is the may-pole, which they bring home 
with great veneration, as thus, etc. . . . And thus equipped, it was 
reared with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, etc. . . . And 
thus they fall to banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dancing about 
it as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idols." 

132 1. Springs . . . ?nakes. Cf. 25 37, 65 36. 

133. Take, O take. Fletcher in his Bloody Brother, v, 2, quotes these 
verses, adding the following stanza of his own : 

Hide, O hide those hills of snow, 

Which thy frozen bosom bears, 
On whose tops the pinks that grow 

Are of those that April wears! 



NO TES. 269 

But first set my poor heart free 
Bound in icy cliains by thee. 

Mr. Swinburne is very indignant and abusive of the " earless owners of 
fingers " who have thought these lines by any possibility Shakespeare's. 
{A Study of Sh., p. 205.) 

133. To Celia. The leading thoughts of this familiar song have 
been traced to scattered passages in the love letters of Philostratus the 
Sophist. Gifford quotes the passages in question. (See his ed. of 

■Jonson, VIII, 268.) 

134. Tobias Hume, a musician and soldier, spent much of his life in 
the services of Sweden. He entered the Charter-house as a poor brother 
in 1629 and lived on to 1645. Rimbault {Bibliotheca Madr., pp. 21 and 
25) accredits him with another book besides this. Some particulars of 
his later life will be found in Notes and Qtteries, Ser. II, VII, 369. 

134 I. Fain would I change. With pardonable enthusiasm Mr. BuUen 
remarks on this exquisite song : "I have found no lines of more fault- 
less beauty, of happier cadence or sweeter simplicity, no lines that more 
justly deserve to be treasured in the memory while memory lasts." Mr. 
Palgrave has included this poem in the new ed., 1892, of his Golden 
Treasury of English Lyrics under the title Omnia vincit. I have pre- 
ferred Mr. Bullen's title. 

134 4. That that. The thing which. 

134 18. / know thee what thou art. Abbott explains this idiom, 
which Shakespeare uses frequently, by regarding thee as the object and 
"the dependent clause a mere explanation of the object." Sh. Gram., 

§ 414- 

135. Thomas Heywood was by far the most voluminous of the 
dramatists of his age, and belonged to the class that wrote for bread 
and dealt with Henslowe. Besides his dramas, Heywood wrote many 
pageants and considerable prose of the pamphlet class. The loss of 
his Lives of All the Poets, if indeed it was ever published, is much to be 
deplored. Charles Lamb, in delight at Heywood's exquisite sense of 
pathos and delicate insight into the human heart, dubbed him "a prose 
Shakespeare." But even Heywood is not all prose, as this musical song 
is sufficient to attest. This poem was also printed in the author's 
Dialogues and Dramas, 1637. 

135 16. Stare. Starling. 

136 1-2. On whose eyelids sit, etc. Cf. Spenser, Faery Queen, ii, 3, 
25: "Upon her eyelids many graces sat . . . working belgards and 
amorous retrate." Cf. also Ford and Dekker's The Strn's Darling, 
iii, 2. I am indebted for these parallels to Professor Kittredge. 



270 NOTES. 

136. Michael Drayton was probably of Cambridge, as his earlier inti- 
mates were Lodge and Daniel. I quote Meres' contemporary estimate 
of his personal character : " As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported 
among all writers to be of an honest life and upright conversation, so 
Michael Drayton [quern toties honoris et amoris causa nomine) among 
scholars, soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of 
virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well governed carriage, 
which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and 
corrupt times, when there is nothing but roguery in villanous man, 
when cheating and craftiness is counted the cleanest wit and soundest 
wisdom." [Paliadis Tainia, i<)(^?>.) Drummond remarked that : "Dray- 
ton seemeth rather to have loved his Muse than his Mistress; by, I 
know not what artificial similes, this sheweth well his mind but not the 
passion." {A^^end\-x., /onsen's Conversatiofis, p. 50.) 

136 11. I hold it vile that vulgar wit affords. I.e., What vulgar wit 
affords I hold vile. 

136. Fair stood the wind. This poem must be distinguished from 
the author's epic entitled The Battle of Agincourt, a far less valuable 
work. The title. To my friends, etc., is Drayton's own. I have pre- 
ferred the earliest version of this best of English martial lyrics ; its 
very rudeness makes it more soldierly. Drayton afterwards filed it as 
was his wont, and somewhat spoiled it in the polishing. Of this poem 
Lowell writes : " It runs, it leaps, clashing its verses like swords upon 
bucklers, and moves the pulse to a charge." [Spenser, Prose Works of 
Lowell, ed. 1894, IV, 280.) 

136 2. Advance. Hoist, raise. 

137 5. But put unto the main. Ed. 1619 : " But putting to the main." 
137 14. With those oppose his way. Note the omission of the relative. 

The later ed. reads : " With those that stopped his way." 

137 15. Whereas the general. " Where the French gen'ral lay." 
Later ed. 

137 17. Which refers to the French general. Cf. 56 3. 

137 18. As Henry to deride. As = as if. Cf. v. 92 below. The later 
version reads : " King Henry to deride." 

137 21. Which. The mandate that Henry send his ransom. Neglects, 
disregards. 

137 28. Ajfiazed. Confused with fear. Cf. 66 15. 

137 34. Rest. Resolution. Cf. Mer. of Vejiice, ii, 2, no: "I have 
set up my rest to run away," i.e., I have made up my mind, resolved. 

138 37. I will. Notice the proper use of will here to denote deter- 
mination. 



NOTES. 271 

138 41. Poyters. I retain the old spelling of this word, as it denotes 
the contemporary English pronunciation. 

138 50. Vaward. Vanguard. 

138 52. Henchmen. Here simply followers. 

138 64. Trumpet to trumpet spake. Cf. with this passage especially 
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Closer metrically is Longfellow's 
Skeleton in Armor. 

138 68. Unto the forces. Ed. 1619 : "To our hid forces." 

139 71. Archery. Bowmen. 

139 73. Spanish yew. The favorite wood in the manufacture of 
bows. 

139 76. Piercing the wether. Wether -x^ here a technical term in arch- 
ery relating to the direction and force of the wind in affecting the aim 
taken. Cf. Toxophihis, ed. Arber, p. 150 f. 

139 82. Bilbows. Swords ; so called from the Spanish town Bilboa, 
where excellent cutlery was made. 

139 88. These were men. Ed. 1619 : " Our men were." 

139 92. As. As if. Cf. V. 18 above. 

139 93. Who = And he ; the later version reads and. 

140 103. That yet a maiden knight. Ed. 1619 : "Though but a 
maiden knight," thus avoiding the repetition of the word yet in the 
next verse. 

140 108. Still. Ever. 

140 ill. Right doughtily. Cf. 65 22, 37. 

140. Cherry Ripe. I read with Mr. Bullen's ed. of Campion. This 
poem was subsequently published in Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale, 
1608, and in Campion's own Foiirth Book of Airs, 1617. Cf. with this 
Herrick's poem of the same title. (Hazlitt's Herrick, I, 17.) 'Cherry 
Ripe ' was a popular street cry of the age. Cf. Jonson's The New Cry : 

Ere cherries ripe and strawberries be gone, 
Unto the cries of London he'll add one ; 
Ripe statesmen, ripe : they grow in every street ; 
At six and twenty, ripe. 

141. fohn Daniel, apparently the brother of Samuel Daniel, the 
poet. Little is known of John beyond the fact that he was later one 
of the court musicians of Charles I and the publisher of his brother's 
works in 1623. (Rimbault, Musa Madr., p. 24.) 

141 3. Notes. Records. 

142 16. Repose me. "Many verbs, which are now used intransitively, 
were used by Shakespeare reflexively." Sh. Gram., § 296. 



272 NOTES. 

142. Death be not proud. " The tenth sonnet of Donne, beginning 
' Death,' " writes Wordsworth to Dyce {Prose Works, ed. 1876, III, 332), 
" is so eminently characteristic of his manner, and at the same time so 
weighty in thought, and original in the expression, that I entreat you 
to insert it." Mr. T. Hall Caine considers this " the weightiest, most 
forceful and full-thoughted of all the many English sonnets WTitten on 
the subject." {Sonnets of Three Cefitiwies, p. 276.) 

142 8. Pest of their bones, and souls'' delivery. These words are in 
apposition with thee in the verse above. 

142 12. Swell ^st thou. I.e., with pride. 

143. Fair Maid of the Exchange. " The vexatious but indispensable 
Mr. Fleay," as some one has recently called him, assigns this play 
variously to Lewis Machin and Jervais Markham. {The Engl. Drama, 
II, 219 and 329.) The play is certainly not Heywood's. 

143 6. Sing . . . (that) she may not lozver. Note the omission of 
the conjunction. 

143 14. Strain. Cf. a similar use of shrill, 135 13. 
143 23. Still. Perhaps here with something of its modern sense, 
even yet. Cf. 14 9. 

143 25-32. This poem is much bettered by the omission of this last 
stanza. The Elizabethans, like some of the poets of other times, did 
not always know when to stop. 

144. Thomas Eord was a musician in the suite of Prince Henry, and 
later in the court of Charles. He died in 1648. (Oliphant.) Rimbault 
mentions only this one work of Ford's. 

144. Love's Steadfastness. The poem appears with this title in The 
Golden Garland of Princely Delights, 1620. Ford's music is given by 
Chappell, Old English Popular Music, p. 1 29. 

144 1. Ye. Cf. 71 2. 

144 10. Cojnpare. Comparison. Cf. 49 2. 

145. fohn Webster was born free of the Merchant Tailors' Company, 
and was probably a cloth-worker as well as a playwright. We know 
next to nothing of his life except the fact that he labored for Henslowe 
in company with Dekker, Heywood, Middleton and others. 

145 1. Call for the robin-redbreast, etc. " I never saw anything like 
this funeral dirge," says Charles Lamb, "except the ditty which 
reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is 
of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that 
in tenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element 
which it contemplates." {Speci?nens of English Dramatic Poets, ed. 
1835. I. 251.) 



XOTES. 273 

145 3. And with leaves . . . do cover. Cf. Shakespeare's use of the 
same popular superstition, Cyt?ibeline, iv, 2, 225. 

145 2. Pink eyne. Small eyes : " Some haue myghty yies and some 
be pynkyied. Quidain pr^i^randibus sunt luminibus, quidam peti^ 
Herman's Vulgaria, 1519, fo. 30, vo. (Hudson.) 

145 3. Vats. The folio reads fats. I modernize for the sake of 
intelligibility. 

146 9. Fi7ted. Refined. 

146 12. Dainty tied. Daintily tied. Adjective for adverb. Cf. Sh. 
Gram., § i. Cf. 154 15. 

147 1. P/ark, hark, the lark. Cf. Sh.'s Son., xxix, 84 12. 
147 4. Chaliced. Cup-shaped. 

147. Dirge. This song is assigned to two singers in the play, 
Guiderius and Arviragus, sons of Cymbeline, disguised under the 
names of Polydore and Cadwal. The first stanza is sung by Guiderius, 
the second by Arviragus, the last two in alternate lines, beginning with 
Guiderius, save for the last two verses of each stanza, which are sung 
together. 

147 14. Thunder-stone. A common word for thunder-bolt. (Hudson.) 
147 15. Censure rash. Hasty, adverse judgment; a^z/^rj^ being here 
implied in the context, and not resident in the meaning of censtire. 

147 18. Consign to thee. " Seal the same contract with thee, i.e., add 
their names to thine upon the register of death." (Steevens.) 

148 19. Exorciser. " Sh. always uses this word to signify one that 
raises spirits, not one that lays them." (Mason.) 

148. The Maid's Tragedy. Mr. Fleay assigns this play to 161 2, Mr. 
G. C. Macaulay to 1609. {Francis Beaiunont, a Critical Study, p. 195.) 

148 7. Lie lightly, gentle earth. Cf. the familiar phrase of Latin 
monuments : Sit tibi terra levis, and Martial, Epigratns, v, 34 : — 

Nee illi, 
Terra, gravis fueris : non fuit ilia tibi. 

See also Jonson's Epig. xxii, On my first daughter, which Mr. Fleay 
assigns to the year 1593 : — 

This grave partakes the fleshly birth, 
Which cover lightly, gentle earth. 

Still another parallel in a Sonnet on the Death of Beau?nont, was pointed 
out by Dyce, in the Pntroductory Essay to his ed. of Beaumont and 
Fletcher, I. 28. 



274 NOTES. 

148. All in Naught. Oliphant considers this poem a translation 
from the Italian, but gives no reference. {Musa Afadr., p. 187.) In 
form the poem is really a quatorzain, although divided into two stanzas 
of equal length, showing the influence of that popular form in length 
and metre, although not preserving its other features. This poem is 
notable in another respect, from the fact that, although an undoubted 
lyric, only the concluding couplet of each stanza rimes. In this respect 
it may be compared with Jonson's yEglamour''s Lameiit, p. 194. 

149. T/io??ias Raveiiscroft was the editor of three works entitled 
respectively Panimelia, Deiiteroinelia, and Alelismata, published between 
1609 and 1611. These collections differ materially from those of the 
writers of Madrigals in including catches, rounds, canons. A Brief 
Discou7'se, 1614, includes verses on "five usual recreations: hunting, 
hawking, dauncing, drinking, enamouring." See Oliphant, Mtts. Madr., 
p. 256, and Linton, Rare Poef?is, p 260. Oliphant, ib., p. 232, denies 
that Ravenscroft was concerned in D enter omelia or Pamvielia. The 
music of this song is given by Chappell, as above, p. 77. 

150 7. Bully boy. A jolly fellow; cf. M. N. B., iii,i, 8: "What 
sayst thou, bully Bottom ? " 

150 6. N'oises. Disturbances making for notoriety. 

151. Simplex Munditiis. Cf. with this poem Herrick's A sweet dis- 
order in the dress {Selections from Herrick, 1882, p. 24), and the anony- 
mous My love in her attire doth show her wit, p. 127 of this volume. 
This song is modelled on some Latin verses of Jean Bonnefons : " Sem- 
per munditias, semper, Basilissa decores," etc., which form part of his 
work entitled Pancharis. Gifford has also pointed out an imitation of 
this poem as late as Plecknoe, which he quotes, ed. Jonson, III, 348. 

151 1. Still to be neat. Always to be finical, over-careful in dress. 
151 10. Taketh me. Captivates me. 

151. 77^1? Muses' Garden^ etc. This song-book is apparently now 
hopelessly lost. In 18 12 Beloe printed six songs from it — all that now 
remain — in his Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, 1807-12, VI, 
162-69. These Mr. Bullen has included in his volume. More Lyrics 
from Elizabethan Song-Books. 

151 7. Toy. Trifle. Cf. 4 36. 

151 11. Self-proof. Proof of your own, experience. Cf. Shakespeare, 
Rich. II, ii, 3, 80 : " Self-born arms;" arms sprung from amongst us, 
civil-war. 

152 17-18. Love's martyr, etc. Professor Kittredge suggests: Taking 
confessor " not in the sense of shrift-father but in the sense of one who 
makes public confession of his faith in a religion (Edward the Confessor 



NOTES. 275 

and the like)," the passage may be paraphrased : " Those who profess 
and suffer for Love {Love's Maytyrs) often at the last confess to their 
being, as it were, devotees of Care." 
152 7-9. How many lualls. Cf. 17 3. 

152 14. Characters. The accent, as usual, on the penultimate. Cf. 
177 :.. 

153. BeaiDHont and Fletcher. I prefer the old-fashioned designation, 
wherever possible. If we are to accept Mr. G. C. Macaulay's reasonable 
theory, this play is largely the work of Beaumont, and was written about 
i6io. {Francis Beatimont, p. 50.) 

153 2. Whiles. Genitive of while, during the time when. Cf. Sh, 
Gram., § 137. 

153 12. Enow. Enough. Both forms were common. So decisive 
a wrench of accent as we seem to have here is very unusual in such 
smooth versifiers as both Beaumont and Fletcher. 

153. Tethys'' Festival. This Masque was celebrated at Whitehall, 
June 5, 1610, on the occasion of the creation of Henry, Prince of 
Wales; Inigo Jones, the famous architect, was Daniel's coadjutor. 
{Daniel's Works, ed. Grosart, III, 'ip\sqq.) The title is Mr. Bullen's. 

154 15. Sudden. Suddenly. Cf. 146 12. 

154 18. Leiigth it. Lengthen it. Cf. 58 10. 

154. A Sea Dirge. Cf. Charles Lamb's note on this poem and 
Webster's Dirge, p. 145 above. 

155 5. After szimmer merrily, i.e., in pursuit of summer like the 
swallow. (Dyce.) 

155 2. Against the stin. Opposite to the sun. Cf. the same expres- 
sion, 161 4. 

155 4. Won. Dwell. 

155 6. Walls of clay. A common building material of the day for 
humbler houses. See Harrison's A Description of England, Camelot 
Series, pp. 114-115. 

155. Love's Immortality. Oliphant has a note on this madrigal in 
which he quotes these lines, by way of parallel, from the Diana of 
Montemayor, "thus rendered by Sir Philip Sidney" : — 

On sandy bank of late 

I saw this woman sit ; 
Where, ' sooner die than change my state,' 

She with her finger writ. 

Oliphant continues : "the point, however, is not concluded as in Byrd's 
version." {Musa Madr., p. 37.) 



276 XOTES. 

155. The Forest. These two songs are numbered i and vii of this 
collection of Jonson's. 

156. That woTnen, etc. This song was written for the Countess of 
Pembroke in penance for maintaining her Lord's opinion against hers. 
(Drummond, Conversations, as above, p. 25.) Mr. Fleay puts the date 
of its composition as early as 1605. {^The English Dratna, I, 321.) 
" Beaumont," says Mr. Swinburne, "must have taken as a model of his 
lighter lyric style the bright and ringing verses on the proposition ' that 
women are but men's shadows.' " {A Study, as above, p. 103.) Pro- 
fessor Kittredge calls my attention to the following striking parallel 
from an Eclogue of Bernardino Baldi (i 553-1617) entitled / Metitori 
(vv. 122-125): — 

Fatta appunto la donna e come I'ombra 
De' nostri corpi, che seguita, mai 
Arrivar non si lascia ; ed a colui, 
Che s'invola da lei sempr' e a le spalle. 

156 2. The screech-owl and the whistler shrill. Cf. The Faery Queen, 
ii, 12, 36 : — 

Fatal birds about them flocked were 



The ill-faced owl, death's dreadful messenger. 
The whistler shrill, that whoso heares doth dy. 

157 6. Competent. Sufficient, enough for one, even of your rank, in 
the grave. 

157. Phillada flouts me. "The air [Phillada flouts me] is referred 
to as 'a new tune' in The Crozvti Garland of Roses, 161 2." (Linton, 
Rare Poems, p. 261.) I take my text from the reprint of Wits Treasury, 
ed. 1658, Musarum Deliciae, Hotten, London, 1817. 

157 11. Alack. Cf. 44 2. Well a day^=2\2A\ an altered form of ivell 
a way. 

158 19. To the wine. " Up to the time at which the wine was served 
and the women left the table," Linton explains. Perhaps the meaning 
is no more than " Will got her to accept his treat of wine " though she 
would not dine with me. 

158 28. Entertain me. Consider me, receive me [as thy lover]. 

158 34. A bag full of shreds. Possibly bits of ribband or cloth, pre- 
served for patchwork or for weaving. 

158 35. Goods. Linton emends "guedes" for the rime's sake. 

158 37. Clout. Kerchief. Cf. 125 8, where, however, the term is 
used of like trifles generally. 



NOTES. Ill 

158 38. Blue Coventry. The Century Dictionary defines this, "a 
blue thread of a superior dye, used for embroidery." This would apply 
very well here, but scarcely to Drayton's shepherd's "breech of Cointree 
blue." {Ballad of Dowsabel.) It is probable that the term applies 
rather to the color than the material. " Coventry blue stuffs were as 
famous as Lincoln green," comments Mr. Bullen. 

159 47. Death strikes me with his dart I Cf. the second stanza of 
Lyly's Vulcan's So?tg,-p. 22, which well expresses the plight of Phillada's 
lover. 

159 53. Whigge. A sort of sour buttermilk or acidulated whey. 
Whilst thou burst. Until, up to the time when. Not an uncommon 
idiom. Cf. Twelfth Night, iv, 3, 28 : " He shall conceal it whiles (till) 
you are willing it shall come to note." Sh. Gram., § 137. 

159 54. Ramble-berry. More usually bramble-berry. 

159 58. IFeaver's shin. Surely quite as good as Mr. Linton's emenda- 
tion, weevil's shin. It is possible that wether's shin of Ritson is nearer 
the true reading. 

160. fohn Fletcher was the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, afterwards 
Bishop of London. He was probably educated at Cambridge, and led 
to authorship by his younger associate, Beaumont, and through the 
encouragement of Jonson and Chapman. Fletcher collaborated with 
several other playwrights besides Beaumont. The plays attributed 
to their joint authorship succeeded to the supreme popularity which 
Shakespeare had long enjoyed, and held the stage until Restoration 
times, and after. 

160. A Bridal Song. The weight of authority is against the Shake- 
spearian authorship of this beautiful song. It is certainly much in 
Shakespeare's manner ; but there are other cases in which Fletcher has 
caught at least the outward style of his great master. Mr. Bullen indi- 
cates the general feeling of doubt in giving the song "-tentatively to 
Fletcher," as he puts it ; adding, " but I have a strong suspicion that it 
is by Shakespeare." {Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists, p. 40.) Cf. 
with this song the song from Valentinian, Now the lusty spring is seen, 
p. 172. 

160 4. Maiden pinks. Fresh pinks. 

160 9. With her bells dim. Mr. \V. J. Linton unnecessarily emends 
"with harebells slim." 

160 12. Larks'-heels. The nasturtium; also explained as the larkspur. 

160 15. Their sense. Sense is here plural. Cf. 11 3. 

161 20. Chough hoar. This is the reading of Seward; the old edd 
read dough hee or dough he. 



278 NOTES. 

161. Orlando Gibbons was " batchelor of music and organist to his 
Majesty's honorable Chapel in ordinary." 

161 6. Hour. Dissyllabic. Cf. 21 13, 43 lo. 

161. Francis Beaumont. The particulars of the life of Beaumont 
are, like those of so many of his contemporaries, quite beyond our 
reach. We know that he had all the advantages of gentle nurture, an 
excellent education, a small competence, and the devoted — at times 
almost deferential — friendship of his most celebrated seniors in litera- 
ture. See an excellent monograph on Beaumont by Mr. G. C. Macaulay, 
London, 1883. 

161. Song for a Dance. This is Mr. Bullen's title ; the poem is 
entitled First Song in the Masque. 

162. Praise of Ceres. Mr. Fleay places the performance of this play 
In 1595. The evidence is doubtful, although everything points to a 
date earlier than 161 3. I curtail the unnecessary repetition of the last 
word of the first and third lines of each stanza, printed, doubtless for 
the sake of the accompanying tune, thus : 

Sing their harvest home, home, home. 

162 8. Champians. Champaign, open country. 

162. What is Love. This song with certain variations is found in 
The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Mr. G. C. Macaulay considers that 
Beaumont had a share in The Captain. 

162 7. Prove. Try it, test it. 

163. Melancholy. It has long since been remarked that this poem 
suggested Milton's // Penseroso. There is a reply to Fletcher's verses 
by Dr. William Strode, published in Wit Restored, 1658 (Reprint, 1817, 
p. 184), a piece of small merit, but it is hardly probable that this had 
any effect in suggesting Milton's companion piece, V Allegro. 

164. Kitig Henry VIII. I accept the orthodox date of Dyce, 
Collier and Delius on this much mooted question. Mr. Fleay assigns 
Shakespeare's version of the play to 1609 ^^^ the rewritten drama by 
Fletcher and Massinger to 161 7. (See his Life of Sh., pp. 68-69.) 
Notice the freedom of the phrasing of this poem, especially the first 
stanza. 

164 5. As. As if. 

164 9. Lay by. Ceased, rested. 

164. Two Books of Airs. Mr. Bullen assigns this book to the year 
1 61 3 on the internal evidence of an allusion to the death of Prince 
Henry. {Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books, p. xv.) 

164. Awake, awake. " Henry Vaughan is the one English poet 



NOTES. 279 

whose devotional fervor found the highest lyrical expression ; and 
Campion's impassioned poem 'Awake, awake,' ... is not unworthy 
the great Silurist " : thus writes Mr. Bullen in the same place. 

165 9. Yields but the model of a span. Cf. 206 1-2. 

165. Sic Transit. I take the title for this poem from Mr. Palgrave, 
who has included it in his Golden Treasury, ed. 1892. 

165 11. Fart of my life. I.e., Night is a part of life, because, 
although spent in sleep which is feigned death and the negation of 
activity (in that you life deny), its purpose is life sweetly to renew. 

165. Hymefi's Triumph, a Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, was performed at 
Somerset House at the marriage of Lord Roxburgh to Mistress Jane 
Drummond; " 'solemn and dull' writes Mr. Chamberlain." (Fleay.) 

166. Sir Henry Wotton was a man of excellent birth and education 
who left England for a time in consequence of the fall of his patron, 
the Earl of Essex. His service in disclosing to James, while he was yet 
in Scotland, a plot against that monarch's life, procured him royal 
favor, and he was afterwards employed on many diplomatic missions. 
Wotton was highly esteemed in his day as a statesman, a writer, and 
an amiable and honorable man. (Condensed from Nicolas' Introduc- 
tion to The Poetical Rhapsody, p. cxviii.) 

166. Overbury^s Wife and Characters, 161 4. This was the fourth 
edition. 

166. The Character of a Happy Life. I take my text of this exceed- 
ingly popular poem from Reliquice Wottoniance, 1672, the third ed., with 
certain changes, the sources of which are noted below. The poem 
exists in many versions, MS. and printed, for an account of which see 
Hannah's Poems of Wotton, Raleigh and Othej-s, 1845, PP- 28-31. Cf. 
with this poem in general tone that of Essex, p. 94. In Azotes and 
Queries (Series I, IX, 420) a question is raised as to whether these 
lines are the translation of a similar German poem, the work of George 
Rudolf Weckherlin, whose Odot tind Gesdnge 2cp^e■^ire^im 1618 and 161 9, 
his Gaistliche und weltliche Gedichte, in 1641 and 1648, and who died in 
1653, in London. The poem in question, entitled Kejinzaichen eines 
gluckseeligen Lebens, appears in Miiller's Bibliothek deutscher Dichter des 
siebzehnten fahrhunderts, ed. Leipzig, 1823, and also in Georg Rtidolf 
Weckherlift's Gedichte herausgegeben von Hermajtn Fischer, I, 148. The 
volume last mentioned contains also a translation of Daniel's Ulysses 
and the Siren ; elsewhere Weckherlin has translated Raleigh's Lie liter- 
ally, though prosaically, and without reference to its English original. 
It is not probable that the borrowing was Wotton's. The personal 
acquaintance of the two writers is established by a long complimentary 



280 NOTES. 

poem of Weckherlin's An Herrn Heinrich IVotton, Engelldfidischen 
Rittern (ed. Fischer, I, 231). 

166 6. Still prepared. Ever ready. 

166 8. Of princes^ grace or vulgar breath. This is the reading of a 
copy in the handwriting of Jonson, which was found by Collier at 
Dulwich College. (See his Memoirs of Alleyn, p. 53.) Drummond 
tells us of Jonson : " Sir Edward [i.e., Henry] Wotton's verses of a 
happy life he hath by heart." {Cofiversations, p. 8.) 

166 9. In this verse I read with the same, as well as other MSS., 
envieth for 'envies,' and whom for 'that.' 

166 10. In this verse I follow again the Jonson MS.; the text of Rel. 
IVotton. is hopelessly corrupt. 

166 13. Rumors. The reading of the Jonson MS., and other author- 
ities. Collier's faulty copy reads humors, which G. F. Warner corrects. 
Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alley it's College of God's 
Gift at Dulwich, 1 88 1, pp. 59-60. 

166 15. State. Estate, position in life. 

167 20. Well-chosen. The reading of all versions save that of Rel. 
Wotton., which has religious. 

167. William Browne of Tavistock was educated at Oxford and the 
Inner Temple, and was, in his youth, intimate with Jonson, Selden 
and Drayton ; but little is known of his life. In literature, he is the 
chief of that group of writers which has been dubbed ' the School of 
Spenser,' although the influence of the Drayton of the Polyolbion 
and The Muses Elizium, seems to me scarcely less an element in 
Browne's pastorals. I take my text of Browne from The Poems of 
William Browne of Tavistock, edited by Gordon Goodwin, 1894. 

167. The hme): Temple Masque was first published by Thomas 
Davies in his ed. of Browne, 1772. (Goodwin, I, xi, f.) 

167. Song of the Siren. Lowell tells us that these beautiful verses 
were suggested by the sirens' song to Sir Guyon in the Faery Queene. 

' O thou fair son of gentle Faery, 
That art in mighty arms most magnified 
Above all knights that ever battle tried, 
O turn thy rudder hitherward awhile, 
Here may thy storm-beat vessel safely ride ; 
This is the port of rest from troublous toil, 
The world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil.' 

With that the rolling sea, resounding swift 
In his big bass, them fitly answered. 



NOTES. 281 

(See Lowell's Prose Works, the Essay on Spenser, IV, 349 ; and Faery 
Queene, ii, 12, 32; cf. also Daniel's well-known Ulysses and the Siren, 
ed. Grosart, I, 270, and Odyssey, xii, 1S6 seq. 

167 4. Passengers. Here is the older sense of a wayfarer or traveler. 

167 5. Perfumes . . . which make the Phoenix' urn and nest. The 
aromatic herbs with which the Phoenix built its nest on preparing 
to die in the flames ; hence appropriately an urn as well as nest. Cf. 
Lactantius, Elegia de Phoenice and Herrick, A Nuptial Song on Sir 
Clipseby Crew {Hesperides, ed. 1869, I, 119): 

The phoenix nest, 
Built up of odors, burneth in her breast. 

Who therein would not consume 
His soul to ash-heaps in that rich perfume ? 
Bestroking Fate the while 
He burns in embers on the pile. 

167 8. Oppose. A play on the two meanings of the word, to set or 
place opposite and to resist. 

167 15. The compass Love shall . . . sing. An evident play upon the 
two meanings of the word compass. Sing compass would then mean : 
(i) tell the points of the compass, the nautical instrument, cf. v. 18 
below ; and (2) show the range of your voice in singing ; cf. ring com- 
pass, 93 13 above. 

167 16. As he, i.e., Love, goes about the ring. Love, moving from 
Siren to Siren, is likened to the needle of the compass moving from 
point to point. 

168. The Charm. This poem was quoted with appreciation by 
Warton in his History of English Poetry (ed. Hazlitt, III, 321), first 
published in 1777-81 ; Warton was also the first to suggest Milton's 
relation and debt to Browne. 

168 6. Mandragoras. Cf. mandrake, 97 2. 

168 7. Simples. Medicinal herbs so named as forming a single or 
simple ingredient in a compound. 

168 9. Coil. Tumult, disturbance. Cf. 196 22. 

168 15. Moly. Cf. Odyssey, x, 305. 

168 17. Jaspis. Jasper, supposed by the ancients to have the virtue 
of breaking a spell or charm. 

168 18. Sagest Greek. . . . The song is broken off by the continu- 
ance of the action of the Masque. 

168. George Wither, the early friend and companion of Browne, is 
one of the poets whom the untimely death of Prince Henry hurried into 



282 NOTES. 

song. His best work is contained in Fidelia^ The Mistress of PhiV arete, 
and The Shepherd's Hunti7ig; in later years he degenerated into a 
mere pamphleteer of unexampled "moral garrulity and tedious length." 
Wither was praised by Charles Lamb for his heptasyllabic trochaics, 
and contrasted, in his poetry and character, with Robert Burns. {On 
the Poetical Works of George Wither, Works of Lamb, II, 405.) 

168. Shall I wasting. " I have transcribed this song verbatim et 
literatim (for it is too precious not to be given exactly as it first saw 
the light)," says Mr. \V. T. Arnold, " from the original edition of 
Fidelia in which it first appeared. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his Ha7idbook 
to Early English Literature assumes the existence of an edition in 
1 61 7, before the well-known second edition in the latter part of the 
same year ; but adds : — * This first edition is supposed to have been 
privately printed. No copy is at present known.' There is, however, 
a copy of this treasure in the Bodleian Library. As I write, the title 
page of it is before me : — Fidelia, London, Printed by Nicholas Oakes, 
161 5." (Ward's English Poets, II, 96.) I need scarcely add that I 
have followed this version. This poem was extremely popular and 
led to many imitations and parodies ; the most famous of these were 
Jonson's, and the one attributed to Raleigh (printed in Hannah's ed. of 
that poet, p. 82; and see Arber, Etigl. Garner, IV, 577). 

169 9. Seely. Simple, innocent. Cf. 6 22. 

169 14. Pelican. In allusion to the popular fable that the pelican 
feeds and revives its young with its own blood. 

170. Poems. The chronology of the poems ascribed to Beaumont 
— those not in the plays — is unascertainable ; as, with the exception 
of Sabnacis and ILer?naphroditus, which is doubtless not his, none of 
his non-dramatic works were published until 1640. Indeed the evidence 
as to all of these poems is more or less apocryphal, as the publisher 
certainly included many things not possibly Beaumont's. 

170 15. For me. As far as I am concerned, or perhaps the very 
common (Lat. abl. of price) : exchange me for him. Cf. ' I would not 
change for thine,' 133 8. 

170 18. Their referring to he or she, a common modern colloquialism. 

170. On the Life of Man. On this poem Hazlitt enthusiastically ex- 
claims : " ' The silver foam which the wind severs from the parted 
wave ' is not more light or sparkling than this : the dove's downy 
pinion is not smoother and softer than the verse . . . the poetry of 
that day . . . often wore a sylph-like form with Attic vest, with faery 
feet, and the butterfly's gaudy wing. The bees were said to have come, 
and built their hive in the mouth of Plato when a child : and the fable 



NOTES. 283 

might be transferred to the sweeter accents of Beaumont and Fletcher." 
{On the Age of Elizabeth^ ed. Bohn, p. 173.) Cf. this poem with those of 
similar structure on pp. 66 and 109 above. It has been attributed to 
Bishop King, and weakly imitated by Simon Wastell in his Microbiblion, 
1629. (See Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets, II, 319.) 

171. On the Tombs, etc. This is regarded as probably Beaumont's 
by Mr. Macaulay. {Francis Beaumont, as above, p. 199.) 

171 5. Lie, had realms. Note the omission of the relative. 

172. The Bloody Brother ; Valentinian. I again follow Mr. Fleay 
as to the probable date of the performance of these two plays. 

172 12. Fall with the leaves still iti October. This familiar simile, 
which I trust has long survived any fidelity to the actual habits of the 
American college youth, was early imitated by John Hilton, Ayres or 
Fa-las for Three Voices, 1627: — 

If any so wise is 

That sack he despises, 
Let him drink his small beer and be sober ; 

Whilst we drink sack and sing 

As if it were spring, 
He shall droop like the trees in October. 

173 15. Cherries kissing as they grow. Cf. Campion's poem, Cherry 
Ripe, 140 above. 

173 17. Eve7i ripe below. Evenly ripe, or perhaps ripe even below, 
i.e., on the side furthest from the sun. 

173. Care-Charming Sleep. Fletcher has certainly succeeded in ring- 
ing a new melody out of this old and popular theme in these tender and 
delicate lines. Cf. 50, note. 

173 5. Light. The folios read sweet. 

173 7. Sing his pain. Assuage his pain by singing. (Mason.) 

173 3, Lusty grapes. Browne uses the same adjective, 177 21. 

173 5. Mazer. A beaker, or bowl. 

174. What Wight he Loved. Cf. with this poem, Crashaw's, Wishes 
to his Supposed Mistress, Works, Library of Old Authors, p. 133. This 
poem is much in the manner of Wither : a characteristic explainable by 
Wither's intimacy with Browne, The Shepherd'' s Pipe being the joint 
production of the two poets. 

174 3. Move. Here = exist. 
174 8. As. That. 

175. Lansdowne MS. jj'j bears date 1650. These poems were 
first printed in 181 5 by Sir S. Egerton Brydges at his Lee Priory Press 



284 NOTES, 

I have placed them thus early as unquestionably most of Browne's 
poetry was written in his youth. 

175 5-7. Love, that to the voice, etc. Love, that is near to the voice 
which breaks from your ivory pale, need not fear, etc. 

175 13. Still. Cf. 14 9; and below, vv. 19, 20. 177 17. 

176 32. Brief. Abstract. 

176. A Round. " Catch Round or Roundelay, and Canon in unison, 
are, in music, nearly the same thing. In all the harmony is to be sung 
by several persons; and is so contrived, that, though each sings pre- 
cisely the same notes as his fellows, yet, by beginning at stated periods 
of time from each other, there results a harmony of as many parts as 
there are singers." (Chappell, Early English Popular Music, I, d^, note.) 

176 7. Then here's, etc. The numerals denote the singers, as the 
word all denotes the chorus. Cf. Dekker's Three Men's Song, 92, above. 
This song was apparently very popular, as in Poor Robi7i's Almanac, 
1699, it is alluded to as well known : " Now [June] is the time when 
farmers shear their sheep . . . and yet for all this, the old song is in 
force still and ever will be : 

Shear sheep that have 'em cry we still." 

(Bullen in Browne, ed. Goodwin, I, xxxiii.) 

176 12. Not I. The MS. reads nor I. 

176 14. N'o hogs are in nty ground. A proverb. 

177. Ccelia is the title of the second section of the Lansdowne MS. 
It consists of fourteen sonnets, all in the Shakespearian form. 

177 3. Wight. Mortal, being. Cf. 23 4. 
177 5. Characters. Cf. 152 14. 

177 7. Ta'en. Taken ; a familiar Middle English contraction. 
177 10. As. As if. Cf. 164 4. 

177 13. Fair. Fair one. Cf. Daniel's use of this adjective as a 
noun in the same sense as here, 51 ]5. 

177. Visions. The seven poems constituting this, the fifth section 
of the MS. are "closely imitated from Spenser's Visions of the World's 
Vanity and his translations of the Visions of Bellay." (Goodwin.) 

178 12. Their proper use. Their own special or peculiar use. 
178 14. So. Such. 

178. For her gait. This little song was first printed with two son- 
nets from the same MS., by Mr. Goodwin in his ed. of Browne, I, 226. 

178 3. State's sake. State = dignity of bearing or carriage. Cf. 
Sidney's use of the same word, 11 5 above. 

179. William Drummond, Poems. The text of the later edd. of 
Drummond is probably more hopelessly and carelessly inaccurate than 



NOTES. 285 

that of any other early English poet approaching his rank; this is 
especially true of Cunningham's ed. of 1833 and Turnbull's in the 
Library of Old Authors. I have collated each of the poems contained 
in this collection with the first folio of the poet's collected works "pub- 
lished at Edinburgh in 1 7 1 1 under the superintendence of Bishop Sage 
and Thomas Ruddiman," (Masson, Drumtnond of Hawthornden, Preface, 
p. vii.) I have also had access, through the kindness of Marshall C. 
Lefferts, Esq., of New York, to his copy of The Most Elegant and 
Elaborate Poems of that great Court-wit Mr. Williatn Drummond etc., 
1659, the readings of which agree closely with the folio just mentioned. 
By these means several readings have been restored in even these few 
poems. Each is noted below. I have not been able to see any of the 
earlier separate edd. of Drummond. 

179 7. Imp6rt7ine. Accent on the penult. Who like case pretends. 
Who offers or presents a similar condition. 

179 10. Thou . . . complains. Cf. 84 5 and the note thereon. 

179 11. Sith. Drummond generally employs this form for since 
(sithence), which had come to be the prevailing form in the England — 
if not the Scotland — of his day. Cf. 63 13, 127 7, 180 2, ii, 181 5. 

179 14. Sighed. Later edd. read sobbed. 

179 4. Gracing grace. Cf. note on 14 8. 

179 5. In fair Paestand's, etc. Later edd., I)i flojvery Paestum's 
field perhaps you grew. Notice Drummond's admirable use of melodi- 
ous proper names in this madrigal. Paestum, a town in Lucania, was 
celebrated for its beautiful roses. Mount Hybla in Sicily, for its honey ; 
the plains surrounding Enna, also in Sicily, were of remarkable fertility 
and on them was situate a temple to Ceres. Lastly, Mount Tmolus, 
Asia Minor, was famed for its wine, saffron, and precious minerals. 

180 11. Blissed. Cf. Ballad of Dotvsabel {Drayton'' s Select Poems, 
ed. Bullen, p. 5) : " There's never shepherd boy that ever was so blissed,''^ 
and 37 28 above. 

180 8. Eatal lot. Death. 

180 1. Thy head with fiafucs. I have inverted the first and second 
lines of this sonnet to preserve the arrangement of rimes. 

180 1. Thy mantle. Main finds a parallel to this in Spenser's 
So7i., Ixx. 

180 2. Turn' St. Return'st. Notice the play upon this and the 
more usual modern meaning of the word in v. 8. 

1808. Sweets in sours. /« = into. 

180 13. N'eglected virtue. Virtue neglected would be the more usual 
modern order of the case absolute. 



286 NOTES. 

180 14. Thine. I.e., thy virtues. 

181. Life a Bubble. The concluding lines of this madrigal have 
often been printed : 

For even when most admired, it in a thought, 
As swelled from nothing, doth dissolve in naught. 

181. To his lute. The general idea of this sonnet may have been 
suggested by Sidney, Arcadia : Grosart's Sidney, III, 8 : 

My lute within thyself thy tunes enclose. 

Thy mistress' song is now a sorrow's cry. (Main.) 

181 1. Thou did grow. Cf. 84 5, 132 i, 179 10. 

181 3. Immelodious winds. Perhaps winds not having melody in 
themselves. " I cannot but think," says Hazlitt, after quoting several 
of the sonnets of Drummond, " that his sonnets come as near as 
almost any others to the perfection of this kind of writing, which 
should embody a sentiment and every shade of a sentiment, as it varies 
with time and place and humor, with the extravagance or lightness of a 
momentary impression, and should, when lengthened out into a series, 
form a history of the wayward moods of the poet's mind, the turns of 
his fate; and imprint the smile or frown of his mistress in indelible 
characters on the scattered leaves." (On the Age of Elizabeth, ed. 
Bohn, p. i8i.) Those interested in the facts which underlie the sub- 
jective expression of poets, will find the story of Drummond's love and 
loss in Professor Masson's excellent, if somewhat voluble, Drummond 
of Hawthornden, pp. 43-53. 

181 4. Ramage. A wood-song. (Nares' Glossary, s. v.) 

182 6. Grim grinning king. Ci. Milton, E. L. ii. 846: "Death 
grinn'd horrible a grisly smile." 

182. Ehyllis. I am not certain that this little trifle may not have 
appeared in print in its author's life-time. Professor Kittredge calls my 
attention to the fact that it is taken from Marino, Madrigal xxxi. 

182 2. Drummond uses this verse elsewhere, Eoems, Part I, 

Madrigal xl : 

Like the Idalian queen, 
Her hair about her een. 

After a reasonable eulogy of Drummond's prose, the preface to the 
ed. 1656 continues: " Neither is he less happy in his verse than prose : 
for here are all those graces met together that conduce anything 
towards the making up of a complete and perfect poet, a decent and 
becoming majesty, a brave and admirable height, and a wit so flowing 
that Jove himself never drank nectar that sparkled with a more 



NOTES. 287 

spritely lustre." This preface is signed E[dward P[hillips], Milton's 
nephew, the author of the Theatrum Poetarum. {Drummond of 
Hawtkornden, p. 472.) 

182. Wouldst thou hear. " The name of the lady upon whom this 
most exquisite epitaph was written is unknown. Jonson wished it 
concealed, and the secret seems to have been carefully kept until the 
means of tracing it were lost." (Gifford's /onson, VIII, 233.) Mr. 
Fleay assigns the writing of this epitaph to c. 1602. {The Engl. Drama, 
I, 320.) Cf. an epitaph of Browne's on Mrs. El. Y. (ed. Goodwin, 
n.343): 

Underneath this stone there lies 
More of beauty than are eyes 
Or to read that she is gone, 
Or alive to gaze upon. 

She in so much fairness clad, 
To each grace a virtue had ; 
All her goodness cannot be 
Cut in marble. Memory 
Would be useless, ere we tell 
In a stone her worth. Farewell. 

183. The Triumph of Charts. Mr. Fleay holds that nine of the ten 
lyrics entitled Charts are referable to a Masque at Court in 1608. 
( The Engl. Drama, I, 324.) The first stanza of this song was omitted 
in the version of The Devil is ait Ass. .This poem has been variously 
estimated : it certainly is very unequal. Hazlitt, in his Lectures on the 
Age of Elizabeth (ed. Bohn, p. 207), dissects the last five verses, and 
finds in them illustrations alike of "imagination," which "consists in 
enriching one idea by another, which has the same feeling or set of 
associations belonging to it in a higher degree," and " the quaint and 
scholastic style," which "consists in comparing one thing to another by 
the mere process of abstraction." Mr. Swinburne, too, indulges in 
some eloquent and violent strictures upon Jonson's metre, declaring : 
" His anapaests are actually worse than Shelley's : which hope would 
fain have assumed and charity would fain have believed to be im- 
possible." {A Sttidy, etc., p. 104.) 

183 10. Through. Perhaps this word should be pronounced thorough 
both times for the metre. Cf. M. N. D., ii, i, 3: "Thorough bush, 
thorough brier." 

183 15. Forehead smoother. An earlier and preferable reading to /^r^- 
head's smoother. 



288 NOTES. 

184 19. As. That. Alone there. We should say 'there alone' or 
'only.' Triumphs. The pronunciation of this word exhibits a divided 
usage in the age of Elizabeth. Cf. Rich. Ill, iii, 4, 91, and Julius 
Caesar, i, i, 56. 

184 19-20. As alone there triumphs, etc. Professor Kittredge sends 
the following explanation of these two verses : " In her face is pres- 
ent, in triumphant beauty, the supreme result {all the good, all the 
gain) of that balance of the warring elements which makes up human 
life and indeed the universe itself. The four elements are in them- 
selves inconsistent and at war (as in chaos). The universe exists as a 
cosmos by virtue of a balancing of them. Every human body is, 
similarly, the resultant of the discordant elements ('Does not our life 
consist of the four elements.^' says Sir Toby, Twelfth Night, ii, 3, 9). 
In my lady's face, then, the supreme result of the balance of those sub- 
stances that make up the universe manifests itself in triumphant beauty." 

184 21-34. Cf. Suckling's imitation of this stanza, entitled A Song to 
a Lute {Poems of Suckling, American ed., 1876, p. 7): 

Hast thou seen the down i' th' air, 
When wanton blasts have tossed it ; 

Or the ship on the sea, 
When ruder waves have crossed it ? 
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping, 

Or the fox's sleeping ? 
Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride. 

Or the dove by his bride. 

When he courts for his lechery ? 
O so fickle, O so vain, O so false, so false is she ! 

184 28. Nard. More commonly spikenard. See Hazlitt's criticism 
of this figure. (As above, p. 208.) 

184. The Vision of Delight. This Masque was presented at Court, 
Christmas of this year, the Queen taking a part. It is probably the 
Masque at which Pocahontas was present. See Captain John Smith's 
abstract of his petition to Queen Anne concerning Pocahontas. {Works 
of Smith, ed. Arber, p. 534.) 

184 1. Fanfsy. The intermediate form between //^aw/ajj and y^?;/r)'. 
184 3. Figures. Images, forms of fancy. 

184 6. Fleatn. Phlegm, one of the four humors of which the human 
body was thought to be composed. 

185. Thrice toss, etc. This fine sonnet is attributed to Thomas 
Campion in the Harleian MS., 6910, fol. 150, and was published by him 
in his Third Book of Airs, about 1617, in a version, which, omitting the 



NOTES. 289 

tenth and twelfth lines, converts the remaining into a succession of 
couplets. On the other hand, it is included amongst "Remains never 
till now imprinted," in the Wo7'ks of Joshua Sylvester, ed. 1633. Dr. 
Grosart, the editor of Sylvester, feels very certain that the sonnet 
belongs to his author. {Works of Sylvester, Chertsey Worthies, \\,12^, 
and I,xxviif.); whilst Mr. Bullen, the editor of Campion, is none the 
less sure that " Sylvester has not a shadow of claim to it." {Lyrics 
from Elizabethan Song Books, Revised ed., p. 220.) See, however. Main's 
Treasury, p. 276, on the subject. As to the charms here recited, cf. 
Virgil, Ecloga viii, Pharmaceittria. 

185. Now winter nights. Mr. Bullen records this as his favorite 
poem of the collection, Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, xvi. 

185 4. Aijy. Open to the air, breezy. 

185 7. Amaze. Bewilder, daze. Cf. 66 15. 

186 10. Wait on. Attend. 

186 23. Toys. Trifles. Cf. 4 36. 

186. Silly boy. Notice Campion's perfect mastery over the long 
trochaic line and the effect of the choice of metre. I have given 161 7 
as the date of the Third, as well as the Fourth, of Campion's Books of 
Airs on the authority of Mr. Bullen's ed. ; in some of his earlier edit- 
ings he assigned them to 161 3. 

186 1. Silly. Here probably seely, innocent. 

186 3. Are bereaved. Destroyed, cut off. Rarely thus used. 

186 6. Artless. Without guile. All is guileless that you now say. 

187 10. And thy Uvely pleasant cheer, dejected {i.e., changed to 
dejection), shall read grief on earth. 

187 16. Envying. This is the usual Elizabethan accent of the verb. 
Cf. Tai7iing of the Shrew, ii, I, 18. 

188 17. That will still be free. I.e., true love will ever be free. 

188. Even Such is Time. These verses also appear in Reliquicz 
WottoniancB, the only poem of the several therein ascribed to Raleigh 
which is undoubtedly his. " That his faith," says Oldys, " was no less 
steadfast in the hopes of a resurrection, we are convincingly assured by 
those verses, which, this last night of his life, he probably wrote also 
here, in the gatehouse, — they being found there in his Bible." This 
story is more probable of this poem than of any of the other poems to 
which it has been applied. 

188. Farewell, ye gilded follies. This poem has been variously 
assigned to Donne and others. Cf. The Complete Angler, ed. 1653, 
p. 243, and MS. Ashm. 38, in which latter it is called " Doctor Donns 
valediction to the worlde." Later edd. of the Angler suggest : " Some 



290 NOTES. 

say written by Dr. Donne, and some say, written by Sir Harry Wotton" 
Raleigh and Sir Kenelm Digby have been like\\ise suggested. The 
" bold and insolent vein " is not unlike Sir Walter, but there is no real 
authority for ascribing the poem to him. Cf. with the general tenor of 
this poem the Passion of my Lord of Essex, p. 94 above and also verses 
to Master Hugh Holland, published in Dowland's Second Book of Song 
and Airs, 1 600 {Lyr. Eliz. Song Books, p. 31), beginning: 

From Fame's desire, from Love's delight retired, 

In these sad groves an hermit's life I lead, 
And those false pleasures, which I once admired, 

With sad remembrance of my fall I dread, etc. 

188 3. Pure clay. Mere clay. 

188 8. Merely but ^hut. Veins. Dispositions. 

189 9. Alone. In modern English only, no more than. 

189 17. Unkind. Unnatural, with probably a play upon the more 
unusual meaning of the word. 

189 18. Mind. A by-form of mine. 

189 31. Minion. Darling. 

389 31. Vie angels -with India. Vie, here a technical term from the 
game of gleek or primero, signifying to wager on a hand of cards. 
Hence here to wager angel-nobles to an amount such as India, with all 
her wealth, would not be able to equal or ' cover.' Cf. note on 130 42. 

190 52. Affect. Strive after, 'cultivate.' 

190 4. Retire. Withdraw or draw out. 

191 3-4. Ever ruing, etc. Ever pitying those poor hearts, which are 
still pursuing their loves, i.e., wooing and as yet without requital. 

192. A Nyjnph^s Passion. Mr. Swinburne remarks that this poem 
'* is not only pretty and ingenious, but in the structure of its peculiar 
stanza may remind a modern reader of some among the many metrical 
experiments or inventions of . . . Miss Christina Rossetti." The struc- 
ture of this stanza of Jonson really exhibits the influence of Donne. 
Cf. his Witchcraft by a Picture (Riverside ed., p. 292) and his Confined 
Love {ibid., 283), in both of which the arrangement of rimes is identical 
with this poem. 

192 7. A narrow joy is but our own. Note the omission of the 
relative. 

192 10. fealous mad. Mad with jealousy. 

192 20. / doubt he is not known. I fear, suspect his real excellence 
is not known, and, on the other hand, fear much more, etc. For this 
use of the word doubt cf. Mer. Wives, i, 4, 42. 



NOTES. 291 

193. The Hour-glass. This song was written for Drummond at his 
request and sent to him in Scotland. (See Conversations, as above, 
p. 38.) Whalley refers the suggestion of the subject to a Latin epigram 
by the Italian poet, Jerome Amaltheus, beginning: 

Perspicuo in vitro pulvis qui dividit horas, 
Dum vagus angustum saepe recurrit iter. 
Olim erat Alcippus, etc. 

Herrick, in a poem of the same title {Hesperides, Library of Old Authors, 
I, 44), has applied this conceit to "lovers' tears," which 

In life-time shed 
Do restless run when they are dead. 

193. The Dream Mr. Swinburne considers " one of Jonson's most 
happily inspired and most happily expressed fancies " ; not losing even 
here, however, that tone of eccentric patronage which pervades so 
much of this rhapsodic and ecstatic criticism, he concludes : " the close 
of it is for once not less than charming." {A Study, as above, p. 105.) 

193 6. Attempt awake. The folio reads attempt f awake. The 
emendation is Gifford's. 

194 13. Sleep\^s\ The folios and subsequent editions read sleep so 
guilty. 

194 14. As. That. 

194. The Sad Shepherd. The date of the composition of The Sad 
Shepherd is beyond definite settlement. But many have doubted that 
the play was really written towards the close of Jonson's career. Mr. 
Fleay identifies it with The May Lord mentioned to Drummond in 
1 61 9, and assigns it to 161 5. Goffe, who died in 1627, imitated The 
Sad Shepherd in his Careless Shepherd, performed in 1629. I do not 
feel sufficiently certain of Mr. Fleay's identification to accept his date ; 
but include this selection in my period without hesitation. (See Fleay, 
Chron. Biog. Hist. I, 379 f.) 

194. ^glamour's Lament. These verses have all the 'notes ' of the 
lyric except rime. It would be hard to draw a line which should ex- 
clude them. I am indebted to the suggestion of Professor Winchester 
that they, as well as several other selections, were not omitted. An- 
other example of the unrimed lyric will be found in the song. All in 
Naught, p. 148 above. It may be worthy of note that in both of these 
cases there is a return to rime in the concluding couplets. 

194 6. Blow-ball. The downy head of the dandelion. 

194 9. As she had sowed them, etc. 'Cf. 12 13. 



292 A'(9 TES. 

194. Since there's no kelp. This famous sonnet appeared first in the 
collected folio of Drayton's Works, 1619, p. 273, and is numbered 61 of 
the sonnets, Idea. " From Anacreon to Moore, I know of no lines on 
the old subject of lovers' quarrels, distinguished for equal tenderness 
of sentiment. . . . Especially may be observed the exquisite graceful- 
ness in the transition from the familiar tone in the first part of the 
sonnet to the deeper feeling and the higher strain of the imagination at 
the close." (Henry Reed, British Poets, I, 241.) It is interesting to 
know that this was a favorite sonnet with Rossetti. In a letter to Mr. 
T. Hall-Caine he writes: — "As for Drayton, his one incomparable 
sonnet is the Love Parting. That is almost the best in the language, if 
not quite." {Recollections of D. G. Rossetti, quoted by Mr. Bullen in his 
Selections from the Poems of Michael Drayton, p. 195.) Cf. the subject 
of this sonnet with the Canzonet below ; the two poems must have been 
written about the same time ; possibly upon the same occurrence. It 
appears that under the pseudonym of his 'fair Idea, soul-shrin'd Saint' 
Drayton concealed the identity of his mistress, Anne Goodeere, the 
daughter of his patron. Sir Henry Goodeere, of Powlesworth Abbey. 
The lovers were eventually separated, and Drayton never married. 

195. The Crier and the Canzonet following appear for the first time 
in the fol. of 1619. The implication of Mr. Bullen that they are to be 
found in the undated ed. of 1605 must be a mistake, as I do not find 
them in that edition, in the edition of 1606, nor in the reprints of these 
editions by the Spenser Society. (See Bullen's Selections from the 
Poems of Drayton, p. S.) 

195 5. O yes, O yes, O yes. Hear! hear! the introductory words of 
a proclamation, here that of the crier, to secure silence. 

195 9. Paift. Pains. 

195 11. Owe. Own. Cf. 123 7, 15. 

195 16. // zvas a tame heart (hart) and a dear (deer). Cf. 78 67, 
85 14, 130 42, 180 2, 5, 8 for like instances of puns. 

195 18. Haunt. Custom, habit. Cf. Chaucer, Canterhiry Tales, 
Prologue, 447. 

195 19. Hardly. With difficulty. Cf. 90 5. 

196 8. Sterved. Killed with want or privation ; partaking here more 
of the modern signification of the Old English verb, steorfan, to die. 

196 10. Azure riverets branched. Drayton uses the same phrase in 
The Baron's War, cvi, 56, 2 : " Whose violet veins in branched riverets 
flow." 

196 14. Prevented. Anticipated. 

196 17. Clip. Embrace. 



NO TES. 293 

196 20. Coil. Disturbance. Cf. 168 9. 

196 23. N^ice. Here with considerable tinge of the old meaning, 
foolish, trifling. 

197. Thomas Vaiitor. Of Vautor we know no more than that he 
was Bachelor of Music and author of this book of songs. 

197. Szveet Siiffolk Owl. Cf. Shakespeare's well known song, p. 43 
above and Tennyson's imitation of it : " When cats run home and light 
is come." 

197. Martin Peerson was Bachelor of Music and author of a second 
book of songs entitled Mottects or Grave Chamber Musique, etc., 1630. 
This last contains a Mourning Song 0/ six parts for the Death of the late 
Right Honorable Sir Fulke Greville . . . Lord Brooke, etc., and a dedi- 
cation to the same nobleman. The work must have been in contem- 
plation at the time of the assassination of Greville, two years earlier ; 
and discloses him, a patron and lover of art to the very close of his life. 

197. Lullaby. This poem, as Professor Kittredge puts it, is " the 
ultimate expression of a mother's worship of her baby, her gratitude 
that it is hers, and her wish that she may be a perfect mother." 

198 19-22. Yet as I am, etc. "Yet such as I am and so far as my 
powers extend, I must and will be thine, though it is true that all I am 
and can be is too little (too small a gift) in return for the gift that thou 
hast vouchsafed to make to me — namely, thyself. Vouchsafe carries 
out the spirit of the first stanza ('my sov'reign,' etc.)." 

198 11. Seld-seen. Seldom seen. 

199. A woman will have her will. Cf. the quest of the condemned 
knight in The Wife of Bath's Tale. 

199 11. Toys. Trifles. Cf. 4 36, 151 7, 186 23. 

199. A Dialogue. This poem and the last selection of this volume 
were first printed by Mr. Bullen in his More Lyrics from Elizabethan 
Song Books, 1888, from a MS., I, 5, 49, in the Library of Christ Church 
College, Oxford. Mr. Bullen gives no dates nor further particulars ; 
but by inference the MS. belongs to the early seventeenth century and 
probably falls within the period covered by this book. Cf. note on the 
poem, guests, 1^1^ below. 

200. On his Mistress, Elizabeth. This was the eldest daughter of 
James, "who, in the Low Countries and some parts of Germany," writes 
Howell {Familiar Letters, ed. Jacobs, p. 112), "is called the Queen 
of Boheme, and for her winning princely comportment the Queen of 
Hearts." She took great interest in the court entertainments of her 
father's reign, appearing in Daniel's masque, Tethys' Festival. To the 
festivities of her marriage with the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, in 



294 NOTES. 

i6i 3, many poets of the day contributed : Chapman, Beaumont, Cam- 
pion, Heywood, Donne and Wither. Her later life was one of much 
trial and vicissitude, through which she appears to have preserved the 
amiability and something of the levity of the Stuarts. This poem was 
printed " in a vacant page, before the other songs " of Este's collection. 
(Rimbault, as above, p. 48.) 

200 1. You ■mea7ier beauties of the night. Cf. Carew's lines To his 
mistress confined, (ed. 1824, p. 133) : 

O think not 



My wandering eye 
Can stoop to common beauties of the sky. 



The date of the writing of this poem was assigned by Freeman {Kentish 
Poets, I, 215). 

201. Underneath this sable hearse. This famous epitaph is found in 
Lansdowne MS. 777, with other epitaphs of Browne's ; it also appears 
"in a middle seventeenth century MS. in Trinity College, Dublin," 
there subscribed, ' William Browne.' In Aubrey's Metnoirs of Natural 
Remarks on Wilts (ed. Britton, 1847 p. 90), this epigram is said to 
have been "made by Mr. William Browne, who wrote the Pastorals," 
{Notes and Queries, Ser. I, III, 262) ; and Mr. Goodwin has lately found 
a passage, in which Browne himself apparently alludes to his authorship 
of this very epitaph. It is in his Elegy on Charles, Lord Herbert, a 
grandson of the Countess, and runs : 

And since my weak and saddest verse 

Was worthy thought to grace thy grandam's hearse, 

Accept of this. 

Returning to the epitaph, it was first published in Osburne's Traditional 
Memoirs of the Reign of King James, 1658, p. 78, and also included in 
the Poems of the Countess' son, William, Earl of Pembroke and Sir 
Benjamin Rudyerd in 1660, p. 66; but "in neither volume is there any 
indication of authorship." Ben Jonson's claim to it, although the 
epitaph must be acknowledged to be much in his manner, rests solely 
upon Whalley's allegation of tradition, and on the fact that it has 
usually been included amongst Jonson's works by his editors : first by 
Whalley. (See his ed. of Jonson.) In both the MSS. above men- 
tioned the second stanza follows. It is so inferior that Mr. W. C. 
Hazlitt believes it not to be Browne's, but the Earl of Pembroke's. 
(See Hazlitt's ed. of Browne, II, 373.) But as Mr. Goodwin has put it, 
•' it must be remembered that Browne has occasionally marred his work 



NOTES. 295 

by not knowing when to stay his hand." (Goodwin's Browne, II, 257.) 
The concluding conceit is by no means foreign to Browne's mode of 
thought. See especially his Epitaph On one drowned in the snow, 
Hazlitt's Browne, II, 339. I have therefore given both stanzas of the 
epigram in the text. 

201 1. Hearse. The canopy of open work or trellis, set over the 
tomb, and used to support candles at times of ceremony. Here = 
tomb. 

201. Hence away, you Sirens. I take my text from the Spenser 
Society's Reprint of The Mistress of PhiP arete, Poems of George Wither, 
p. 814. There is a second, decidedly weaker version of this facile poem. 
Wither was often troubled with pangs of conscience for the levity of 
his earlier Muse ; it may have been in one of these moments that he 
reduced his Sirens to one, and somewhat prudishly covered their antique 
nakedness. 

201 4. Prove. Test, make trial of. 

202 16. Pay. Radiance, light. 

203 42. Mates with him. Enjoys like privileges, is his equal. 

203 44. There^s noble hills. A noun in the plural was often used as 
the logical subject of is. Cf. Hen. V, iv, 6, 32 : " There is salmons in 
both." 

203 52. Greatest fairest. Wither had not lost the great Elizabethan 
daring in the formation of compounds. Cf. never-touched thorn, v. 34 
above ; and see 13 5, note. 

204 73. That coy one in the winning. That one who is coy while 
winning or, as we say, while being won. This phrase almost amounts 
to a compound. 

204 85-90. Few attempt to gain favor with her. And if a lover 
should be so bold as to woo {complain), she is not to be gained at a word. 

204 96. You labor t?iay. You will find it a great labor. 

205. Flowers of Sion. The text is here, as above, from the first 
folio collected edition, 171 1. 

205 1. Brandons. Torches. The fol. and the earlier collected ed. 
of 1656 read tapers. Brandons is apparently the earlier reading. See 
Main, English Sonnets, p. 432 f. 

205 4. Out-weep. Cf. 13 5, note. 

205 5-8. These locks, the gilt {i.e., the golden and guilty) attire of 
blushing deeds ; waves (of hair and of the sea) curling to shadow deep 
(conceal in their depths) wrackful shelves (ship-wrecking reefs) ; rings 
(ringlets of hair), which wed souls, etc., do now aspire to touch thy 
sacred feet. 



296 NOTES. 

205. The Book of the World. Main quotes besides a parallel in 
Daniel's Defence of Rime, the following lines from Wither^ s Motto, 1621 
(as above, p. 325) : — 

For many books I care not ; and my store 
Might now suffice me, though I had no more 
Than God's two Testaments, and therewithal! 
That mighty volume which we world do call. 

205 9-12. Main likewise refers the reader for a parallel to these lines 
to Astrophel and Stella, xi : — 

For like a child that some fair book doth find, 
With gilded leaves and colored vellum plays, 
Or at the most on some fine picture stays. 
But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind, etc. 

206. The world's a bubble. In the first ed. this poem was signed 
• Ignoto.' It was first ascribed to Bacon in Farnaby's Florilegium, 1629, 
p. 10 ; elsewhere it has been variously ascribed to Raleigh, Donne, and 
to Henry Harrington. Although it compares rather favorably with 
Bacon's translations of the Psalms, in view of the fact that it is little 
more than a translation, and peculiarly in accord with the passionless 
worldliness that marks the character of the Lord Chancellor, I see no 
reason to doubt his authorship of it. The whole poem is a paraphrase 
of a Greek epigram attributed to Poseidippus, by others to Plato, the 
comic poet, or to Crates the Cynic, beginning : 

IIo^T^j' Tis ^iStoio tcl/xol Tpl^ov; elv dyopr) ixkv 
'NeUea Kal xaXeTrai Trpiy^ies • etc. 

See Anthol. Graeca, IX, 359. I am indebted for this parallel to my 
friend and colleague. Professor Lamberton, 

206 1. The world^s a bubble. Cf. Drummond's Madrigal, Life, a 
Bubble, p. 181, above. 

206 2. Less than a span. Cf. 165 8-9. 

206 8. Limns. Paints. 

207 25. Affections. Emotions, feelings. Cf. 115 13, 21. 
207 29. Noise. Tumult, disturbance. Cf. 150 6. 

207. Guests. " This magnificent descant," as Mr. Saintsbury calls it, 
was discovered by Mr. Bullen, and first printed in his More Lyrics from 
Elizabethan Song Books from the MS. K. 3. 43. 5 in the library of Christ 
Church College, Oxford. Well may Mr. Bullen declare that "verse so 
stately, so simple, so flawless, is not easily forgotten." Both Mr. 
Bullen and Mr. Saintsbury have surmised that Henry Vaughan is the 



NOTES. 297 

author. But as Thomas Ford, who set these words to music, was a 
musician in the suite of Prince Henry in 1607, and on the accession of 
Charles was appointed one of the king's musicians, dying, evidently a 
very old man, in 1648; and as Vaughan's earliest published work is 
dated 1650, I think that we may safely place this poem within our 
period. Mr. Bullen suggests that these verses may have once formed 
part of a longer poem. I have printed them for the first time in the 
stanzas which their structure demands. 

208 7-18. " Few could have dealt with common household objects — 
tables and chairs and candles and the rest — in so dignified a spirit," 
comments Mr. Bullen. 

208 10. Order taken. Arrangements made. 

208 14. Dazie. A canopy of state. Mr. Bullen reads dais. 

208 30. Still lodge. Ever lodge. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



This Index centaiTts, besides the poems of the text, those which, belonging to this 
period, are quoted entire in the Introduction and Notes. Such poems are indicated by 
an asterisk. 



PAGE 

Absence, hear thou my pro- 
testation 125 

Accurst be Love, and those 

that trust his trains ... 60 
Adieu, farewell earth's bliss . 52 
Ah, sweet Content, where is 

thy mild abode .... 56 
Ah, were she pitiful as she is 

fair 34 

Ah, what is love .'' It is a 

pretty thing 45 

Alas ! what pleasure, now the 

pleasant Spring . . . .109 
Amid my bale I bathe in bliss i 
* April is in my mistress' face 229 
Are they shadows that we see 1 53 
Art thou poor, yet hast thou 

golden slumbers .... 93 
Art thou that she than whom 

no fairer is 199 

As it fell upon a day . . . %^ 
As I in hoary winter's night . 69 
As virtuous men pass mildly 

away 102 

As mthereth the primrose by 

the river no 

As you came from the holy 

land 3 



Awake, awake ! thou heavy 
sprite 164 

Beauty sat bathing by a spring 108 
Beauty, sweet love, is like the 

morning dew 49 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind 95 
Break, Fant'sy, from thy cave 

of cloud 184 

Bright star of beauty, on 

whose eye-lids sit ... 136 
Brown is my love, but grace- 

ful 83 

Call for the robin-redbreast 

and the wren 145 

Calm was the day, and through 

the trembling air .... 76 
Camella fair tripped o'er the 

plain 190 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of 

the sable Night .... 50 
Care-charming Sleep, thou 

easer of all woes. . . . 173 
Cold's the wind, and wet's 

the rain .92 

Come away, come away, death 122 



300 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Come, cheerful day, part of 

my life to me 165 

Come, come, dear Night, 

Love's mart of kisses . . 90 
Come hither, shepherd swain 8 
Come, little babe, come, silly 

soul 64 

Come live with me, and be 

my love 57 

Come, Sleep ! O Sleep, the 

certain knot of peace . . 13 
Come, thou monarch of the 

vine 145 

Come, ye heavy states of 

night Ill 

Come, you whose loves are 

dead 153 

Crowned with flowers I saw 

fair Amaryllis 155 

Cupid and my Camp asp e 

played 19 

Cynthia, because your horns 

look divers ways . . . . 18 
Cynthia, whose glories are at 

full forever 16 

Dear chorister, who from 
those shadows sends . .179 

Dear love, for nothing less 
than thee 100 

* Dear, though from me your 
gracious looks depart . . Ixiv 

Death, be not proud, though 
some have called thee . .142 

Devouring Time, blunt thou 
the lion's paws 83 

Diaphenia, like the daffa- 
downdilly 105 

^ Do but consider this small 
dust 193 



PAGE 

Doubt you to whom my Muse 

these notes intendeth . . ii 

Down a down ! 31 

Down in a valley, by a forest 

side 177 

Drink to-day, and drown all 

sorrow 172 

Drink to me only with thine 

eyes 133 

Even such is time, that takes 
on trust 188 

Faint Amorist, what ! dost 

thou think 9 

Fain would I change that 

note 134 

Fain would I have a pretty 

thing 24 

Fair and fair, and twice so 

fair 20 

Fairest, when by the rules of 

palmistry 177 

Fair is my love for April in 

her face 34 

Fair is my love, when her fair 

golden haires 64 

Fair is the rose, yet fades 

with heat or cold . . .161 
Fair stood the wind for 

France 136 

Fair summer droops, droop 

men and beasts therefore . 51 
Farewell, ye gilded follies, 

pleasing troubles ! . . . 188 
Faustina hath the fairer face 1 27 
Fear no more the heat o' the 

sun 147 

Feed on, my flocks, securely . 106 
Follow a shadow, it still flies 

you 156 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



301 



Follow thy fair sun, unhappy 

shadow ii8 

For her gait if she be walking 178 

For pity, pretty eyes, surcease 60 

Fortune smiles, cry holyday . 44 
Full fathom five thy father 

lies 154 

Full many a glorious morning 

have I seen 84 

Go and catch a falling star . 97 
God Lyasus, ever young . .173 
Go, happy heart ! for thou 

shalt lie 191 

Golden slumbers kiss your 

eyes 94 

Good folk, for gold or hire . 195 
Give me my. scallop-shell of 

quiet 129 

Gracious, Divine, and most 

Omnipotent 81 

Happy were he could finish 

forth his fate 94 

Hark, hark ! the lark at 

heaven's gate sings . . .147 
Hark, now evei-ything is still 156 
Hence, all you vain delights . 163 
Hence away, you Sirens, leave 

me 201 

Here she was wont to go, and 

here, and here 194 

Her hair the net of golden 

wire 190 

High way, since you my chief 

Parnassus be 14 

His golden locks time hath to 

silver turned 42 

How happy is he born and 

taught 166 



PAGE 

How many new years have 
grown old 152 

How should I your true love 
know 128 

I fear not henceforth death . 180 
* If all the world and love 

were young 237 

If I could shut the gate 

against my thoughts . .141 
If I freely can discover . .114 
If Jove himself be subject 

unto Love 23 

If love be life, I long to die . 73 
If music and sweet poetry 

agree 87 

If women could be fair and 

yet not fond ..... 33 
If yet I have not all thy 

love 98 

I live, and yet methinks I do 

not breathe 148 

I long to talk with some old 

lover's ghost 103 

I love and he loves me again 192 
In crystal towers and turrets 

richly set 155 

In petticoat of green . . .182 
In the merry month of May . 47 
In time of yore when shep- 
herds dwelt 27 

In time we see that silver 

drops 26 

I pray thee leave, love me no 

more 196 

I saw my lady weep . . . .111 
I serve Aminta, whiter than 

the snow 108 

It fell upon a holy eve ... 5 
It was a lover and his lass . 96 



302 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES, 



PAGE 

I, with whose colors Myra 
dressed her head ....17 

Lady, when I behold the roses 
sprouting 90 

Lay a garland on my hearse . 148 

Let me not to the marriage 
of true minds 86 

Like as the waves make 
towards the pebbled shore 85 

Like to Diana in her summer- 
weed y] 

Like to the clear in highest 
sphere 30 

Like to the falling of a star . 1 70 

Like two proud armies march- 
ing in the field 112 

Lock up, fair lids, the treasure 
of my heart 11 

Look, Delia, how we esteem 
the half-blown rose ... 49 

* Look how the pale queen of 

the silent night . . . .217 
Love for such a cherry lip . 123 
Love gilds the roses of thy 

lips 58 

Love, if a god thou art . . . 72 
Love in my bosom like a bee 29 
Love is a sickness full of woes 165 
Love not me for comely grace 149 
Love winged my hopes and 

taught me how to fly . .121 

Mortality, behold and fear . 171 

* Muses that sing Love's 

sensual empery . . . . xx 
My Daphne's hair is twisted 

gold 41 

My hovering thoughts would 

fly to heaven 70 



PAGE 

My love in her attire doth 

show her wit 127 

My lute, be as thou wast 

when thou did grow . .181 
My mistress' eyes are nothing 

like the sun 87 

My only star 74 

My Phyllis hath the morning 

sun 59 

My prime of youth is but a 

frost of cares 27 

My shag-hair Cyclops, come, 

let's ply 22 

My thoughts hold mortal 

strife . 182 

My true-love hath my heart, 

and I have his 10 

Never more will I protest . 170 
No longer mourn for me 

when I am dead .... 85 
Not to know vice at all, and 

keep true state 115 

Now each creature joys the 

other 50 

Now that the spring hath 

filled our veins . . . .176 
Now the lusty spring is seen . 172 
Now what is love, I pray 

thee, tell 61 

Now winter nights enlarge . 185 

O cruel Love, on thee I lay . 21 
O Cupid ! monarch over kings 42 
O, fair sweet goddess, queen 

of loves 191 

Of this fair volume which we 

World do name .... 205 
O gentle Love, ungentle for 

thy deed 21 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



303 



PAGE 

O Mistress mine, where are 

you roaming 122 

On a hill there grows a flower 67 
* Open the door ! Who's there 

within' 198 

Orpheus with his lute made 

trees 164 

Or scorn or pity on me 

take '. 193 

O shady vales, O fair enriched 

meads 55 

O, Sorrow, Sorrow, say where 

dost thou dwell . . . .124 
O I what a pain is love . 157 

Pack, clouds, away, and wel- 
come day 135 

Queen and Huntress, chaste 
and fair 113 

Resolved to dust entombed 
here lieth Love .... 23 

Restore thy tresses to the 
golden ore 48 

Ring out your bells, let mourn- 
ing shews be spread ...15 

Roses, their sharp spines 
being gone 160 

* Say, gentle nymphs, that 

tread these mountains . . Ivi 
See the chariot at hand here 

of Love 183 

Send home my long-strayed 

eyes to me loi 

Shake off your heavy trance . 161 
Shall I tell } ou whom I 

love 174 



PAGE 

Shall I, wasting in despair . 168 
Silly boy 1 'tis full moon yet, 
thy night as day shines 

clearly 186 

Since first I saw your face, 
I resolved to honor and 

renown ye 144 

Since there is no help, come 

let us kiss and part . . .194 
Sing to Apollo, God of day . 41 
Sister, awake I close not your 

eyes 132 

Sitting by a river's side . . 54 
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep 

time with my salt tears . .113 
Some act of Love's bound to 

rehearse 155 

Some say Love 35 

Son of Erebus and Night . .168 
So oft as I her beauty do be- 
hold 63 

Spring, the sweet Spring, is 

the year's pleasant king . 52 
Steer hither, steer your winged 

pines 167 

Stella, think not that I by 

verse seek fame . . . . 14 
Still to be neat, still to be 

drest 151 

* Such was old Orpheus' cun- 
ning Ivi 

Sweet are the thoughts that 

savor of content .... 47 
Sweetest love, I do not go . 99 
Sweet Love, my only treasure 146 
Sweet Phyllis, if a silly swain 106 
Sweet rose, whence is this 

hue 179 

Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly 
dight 197 



304 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Take, O take those lips away 133 
Tell me, dearest, what is love 162 
Tell me, what is that only 

thing 199 

Tell me where is fancy bred . 82 
The doubt which ye misdeem, 

fair love, is vain .... 63 
The earth, late choked with 

showers 4 

The earth, with thunder torn, 

with fire blasted .... 18 
There is a garden in her face 140 
The sea hath many thousand 

sands 151 

* These eyes, dear Lord, once 

brandons of desire' . . . 205 
The stately dames of Rome 

their pearls did wear . . i 
The worldly prince doth in 

his sceptre hold . . . .124 
The world's a bubble, and the 

life of man 206 

This Life, which seems so 

fair 181 

This world a hunting is . . 206 
Those eyes that hold the 

hand of every heart ... 66 
Those eyes that set my fancy 

on a fire 82 

Thou art not fair, for all thy 

red and white 119 

Thou sent'st to me a heart 

was sound 112 

Thrice blessed be the giver . 90 
Thrice toss these oaken ashes 

in the air 185 

Through the shrubs as I can 

crack 38 

Thy head with flames, thy 

mantle bright with flowers . 180 



PAGE 

Trust not his wanton tears . 7 1 
Turn all thy thoughts to eyes 187 

Underneath this sable hearse 201 

* Underneath this stone there 

lies 287 

Under the greenwood tree . 95 
Upon my lap my sovreign sits 197 

Virtue's branches wither, Vir- 
tue pines 44 

We be three poor mariners . 149 
Weep not, my wanton, smile 

upon my knee 36 

Weep, weep, ye woodmen, 

wail 92 

Weep with me all you that 

read 127 

Weep you no more, sad 

fountains 131 

Welcome, welcome, do I sing 175 
Were I as base as is the 

lowly plain 126 

What guile is this, that those 

her golden tresses ... 62 
When as man's life, the light 

of human lust 19 

* When I admire the rose. . 250 
When icicles hang by the 

wall 43 

When, in disgrace with for- 
tune and men's eyes . . 84 

When in the chronicle of 
wasted time 86 

When thou must home to 
shades of underground . 120 

When to her lute Corinna 
sings 119 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



305 



PAGE 

Where the bee sucks, there 

suck I 154 

Where wards are weak and 

foes encount'ring strong . 68 
Whether men do laugh or 

weep i-o 

While that the sun with his 

beams hot 39 

Whoever comes to shroud me, 

do not harm 104 

Who is Silvia ? what is she . 56 
Who, Virtue, can thy power 

forget 150 

With fair Ceres, Queen of 
Grain 162 



With how sad steps, O moon, 
thou climb'st the skies . . 13 

Wit's perfection, Beauty's 
wonder 72 

Wouldst thou hear what man 
can say 182 

Ye bubbling springs that 
gentle music makes . . .132 

Ye little birds that sit and 
sing 143 

Yet if his majesty our sov- 
ereign lord 207 

You meaner beauties of the 
night 200 



INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 



Names printed in Roman letters denote authors ; those in italics, editors ; the dates 
following are those of birth, earliest authorship and death. When the editor ts 
unknown, MS. or other so7irce is given. Original titles are printed in Roman ; those 
assigned by others than the author, in italics ; first lines are put in quotation marks. 



PAGE 

Alison, Richard ( ? — 1 606 — ? ) : 

See Campion, Cherry Ripe 140 

Bacon, Francis (1561 — 1588 — 1626): 

The World 206 

Barley, William ( ? — i 596 — ? ) : 

Sonnet, * Those eyes that set my fancy on a fire ' 82 

Barnes, Barnabe (1569? — 1593 — 1609): 

Sonnet LXVI, ' Ah, sweet content ' 56 

The Talent 81 

Barnfield, Richard (1574 — 1594 — 1627): 

Sonnet, In Praise of Music and Poetry 87 

An Ode, * As it fell upon a day ' 88 

Bateson, Thomas (i 580 ? — 1 504 — 1620 ?) : 

Song of the May 132 

Camella 190 

Willing Bondage 190 

Beaumont, Francis (1584 — 1602 — 1616) : 

Song for a Dance 161 

The Indifferent 170 

On the Life of Man 170 

On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey 171 

Beaumont and Fletcher : 

Aspatid's Song 14° 

Luce's Dirge 153 



308 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 

PAGE 

Bolton, Edmund (1575? — 1600 — 1633?): 

A Canzon Pastoral 109 

Palinode no 

Breton, Nicholas (1545? — 1577 — 1626?): 

Olden Love Making 27 

Phyllida and Corydon 47 

A Sweet Lullaby 64 

A Sonnet, * Those eyes that hold the heart of every hand ' . . 66 

A Pastoral of Phyllis and Corydon 67 

Corydon's Supplication to Phyllis 106 

Sonnet, The SouVs Haven 124 

Brooke, Lord, see Greville. 

Browne, Willla.m (1591 — 1613 — 1643?): 

Song of the Siren 167 

The Charm 168 

What Wight he Loved 174 

'Welcome, welcome do I sing' 175 

A Round 176 

Sonnet III, ' Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry ' . . . . 177 

Sonnet VI, ' Down in gi valley ' 177 

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke 201 

Byrd, William (1538? — 1575 — 1623) : 

See Vere ^^ 

Philon the Shepherd, his Song 39 

Madrigals: The House of Content 155 

Love's Immortality 1 55 

Campion, Thomas (? — 1595 — 1619) : 

In Im,agine Pertransit Homo 118 

Of Corinna's Singing 119 

The Challenge 119 

Conjuration 1 20 

Cherry Ripe 140 

' Awake, awake, thou heavy sprite ' 164 

Sic Transit 165 

Sonnet, The Charm 185 

' Now winter nights enlarge ' 185 

' Silly boy ! 't is full moon yet ' 186 

True Love 7vill yet be Free 187 



INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS, 309 

PAGE 

Chapman, George (1559? — 1594 — 1634): 

Epithalamion Teratos 90 

Chester, Robert ( 1 566 ? — 1 60 1 — 1 640 ? ) : 

See JoNSON 115 

Chettle, Henry (1562? — 1592 — 1607?): 

Wily Cupid 71 

Christ Church MS. : 

A Dialogue 199 

Guests 207 

Constable, Henry (1562 — 1588 — 161 3): 

Damelus' Song 105 

To his Flock 106 

Daniel, John (? — 1604 — 1625?): 

Song, ' If I could shut the gate against my thoughts ' .... 141 

Daniel, Samuel (1562 — 1584 — 1619): 

Sonnet XI, ' Restore thy tresses * 48 

XXXI, 'Look, Delia' 49 

XLII, ♦ Beauty, sweet love ' 49 

XLV, ' Care-charmer sleep ' 50 

An Ode, ' Now each creature joys the other ' 50 

Eidola 153 

Song of the First Chorus 165 

Davison, Francis (1575.'' — 1594 — 1619?): 

Madrigal, To Cupid 72 

Three Epitaphs upon the Death of a Rare Child of Six Years 

Old 72 

Ode X, Dispraise of Love and Lover's Follies 73 

Ode, ' My only star ' 74 

Davison, Francis: 

Ode; see Donne 125 

Sonnet, ' Were I as base as is the lowly plain '; see Sylvester 126 

Madrigal, ' My love in her attire ' 127 

In Praise of Two 1 27 

Dekker, Thomas (1570? — 1590 .? — 1641) : 

Hymn to Fortune 44 

Song, 'Virtue's branches wither ' 44 

The Second Three Men's Song • . 92 



310 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 

PAGB 

Dekker, Thomas: 

O Sweet Content 93 

Lullaby 94 

'O Sorrow, Sorrow' 124 

Devereux, Robert, Earl of Essex (1567 — ? — 1601): 

A Passion of my Lord of Essex 94 

Donne, John (1573 — 1590 — 1631): 

Song, ' Go and catch a falling star ' 97 

Lover's Infiniteness 98 

Song, ' Sweetest love, I do not go ' 99 

The Dream 100 

The Message loi 

Upon Parting from his Mistress 102 

Love's Deity 103 

The Funeral 104 

Ode, That time and absence proves Rather helps than hurts to 

loves 125 

Sonnet X, ' Death, be not proud ' 142 

Dowland, John (i 563 ? — 1 592 — 1 626 ? ) : 

Cofne, Sorro7v, Come Ill 

' I saw my lady weep ' 1 1 1 

Lullaby 131 

Drayton, Michael ( 1563— 1587 — 163 i) : 

Sonnet LXIII, To the Lady L. S 136 

Ode XII, Agincourt, To my friends the Camber-Britans and 

their Harp 136 

Sonnet LXI, 'Since there's no help' 194 

The Crier 195 

Canzonet, To his Coy Love 196 

Drummond, William (1585 — 1613 — 1649): 

Sonnet, To the Nightingale 179 

Madrigal, ' Sweet Rose, whence is this hue ' 179 

Madrigal, * I fear not thenceforth Death ' 180 

Sonnet, ' Thy head in flames ' 180 

Madrigal, Life a Bubble i8i 

Sonnet, To his Lute 181 

Phyllis 182 

Sonnet, For the Magdalene 205 



INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 311 

PAGE 

Drummond, William : 

Sonnet, The Book of the World 205 

'y^Madrigal, The World a Hunting 206 

Essex, see Devereux. 

Este, Michael, see Wotton. 

Fair Maid of the Exchange, The : 

' Ye little Birds that sit and sing ' 143 

Farnaby, Giles ( ? — 1 598 — ? ) : 

Canzonet 90 

Fletcher, John (1579 — 1607 — 1625): 

A Bridal Song 1 60 

What is Love 162 

Melancholy 163 

'Drink to-day, and drowTi all sorrow '" 172 

Lovers Emblems 172 

'Care-charming Sleep' 173 

' God Lyaeus ever young ' 173 

Love's Sacrifice 1 91 

Hymn to Venus 191 

A Woman will have her Will 199 

Ford, Thomas ( ? — 1607 — 1648) : 

Love''s Steadfastness 144 

Gascoigne, George (1530? — 1562 — 1577): 

Sonnet, * The stately dames of Rome ' i 

The Strange Passion of a Lover i 

Gibbons, Orlando (1583 — 1611 — 1625) : 

' Fair is the rose ' 161 

Greaves, Thom.as {c. 1604) : • 

Madrigal, ' Ye bubbling springs ' 132 

Greene, Robert (1560? — 1580 — 1592): 

Doralicia's Ditty 26 

' Fair is my love for April is her face ' 34 

' Ah, were she pitiful, as she is fair ' 34 

Menaphon's Song 35 

Sephestia's Song to her Child ... 36 

Doron's Description of Samela yj 

Doron's Jig 38 



312 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 

PAGE 

Greene, Robert : 

The Shepherd's Wife's Song 45 

Content 47 

Philomela's Ode, that She sung in her Arbor 54 

Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke (1554 — 1576? — 1628): 

Sonnet XVII, To Cynthia 16 

XXII, Myra 17 

LV, To Cynthia 18 

UXXXNll, Forsake thyself to Heaven turn Thee ... 18 

LXXXVIII, A Contrast 19 

Heywood, Thomas (1575.^ — 1594 — 1650): 

Good Morrow 135 

Praise 0/ Ceres 162 

Hume, Tobias ( ? — 1605 — 1645) : 

In Laudem Amoris 134 

Jones, Robert ( .? — 1601 — 1616 .'' ) : 

• Love winged my hopes ' 121 

Where my Lady Keeps her Heart 146 

The Woes of Love 151 

Uncertainty 152 

JoNsoN, Ben (1573 — 1596? — 1637): 

Echo's Dirge for Narcissus II3 

Hymn to Diana I13 

His Supposed Mistress 114 

Epode, ' Not to know vice at all' 115 

An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy 127 

To Celia, ' Drink to me only with thine eyes ' 133 

Virtue Triumphatit 150 

Simplex Munditiis . . . * 151 

Why I write not of Love 155 

Song, That Women are but Men's Shadows 156 

Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H 182 

The Triumph of Charis 183 

Song of Night 184 

A Nymph's Passion 192 

The Hour-Glass 193 

The Dream 193 

yEglamour^s Lament 194 



INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 313 

PAGE 

Lodge, Thomas (1558? — 1579 — 1625): 

Lament 4 

Rosalind's Madrigal 29 

Rosalind's Description 30 

Phoebe's Sonnet 31 

The Solitary Shepherd's Song 55 

Love's Wantonness 58 

To Phyllis, the Fair Shepherdess 59 

♦ Accurst be love ' 60 

' For pity, pretty eyes, surcease ' 60 

Lyly, John (1554? — 1578 — 1606): 

Apelles' Song 19 

Sappho^ s Song 21 

Vulcan's Song 22 

A Song of Daphne to the Lute 41 

Hymn to Apollo 41 

Hymn to Cupid 42 

Marlowe, Christopher (1564 — 1587 — 1593): 

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love 57 

MiDDLETON, Thomas (1570.? — 1597 — 1627): 

Lips and Eyes 123 

Munday, Anthony (1553 — 1577 — 1633): 

Montana's Song 108 

To Colin Clout 108 

MUNDAY AND CheTTLE : 

Robin Hood's Dirge 92 

Nashe, Thomas (1567 — 1589 — 1601): 

Fading Summer 51 

Spring 52 

Death's Summons 52 

Overbury, Sir Thomas (1581 — 1609 — 1613) : 

See WoTTON 166 

Oxford, Lord. See Vere. 

Oxford Music School MS. : 

My Heart 112 

Peele, George (1558 — 1582 — 1598?): 

Cupid'' s Curse 20 



314 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 

PAGE 

Peele, George: 

Colin's Passion of Love 21 1 

Farewell to Arms 42 

Feerson, Martin ( ? — 1 620 — ? ) : 

Lullaby 197 

The Retort Courteous 1 98 

Futtenham, George (i 532 — 1 584 — 1 590) : 

See Sidney 10 

Raleigh, Sir Walter (1S52 — 1576 — 1618): 

Filgrim to Filgrim (?) 3 

' Now what is Love' 61 

His Pilgrimage 129 

' Even such is Time ' 188 

A Farewell to the Vanities of the World (?) 188 

Ravenscroft, Thomas (1592 — 1 609 ? — ? ) : 

Three Poor Mariners 149 

Robinson, Clement ( ? — 1 584 — ? ) : 

A Proper Song 24 

RossETER, Philip (? — 1601 — 1610) : 

All is Vanity 120 

Rosseter, Fhilip, see Campion. 

Shakespeare, William (1564 — 1589 — 1616): 

Winter 43 

Silvia 56 

A Song the whilst Bassanio comments on the Caskets to him- 
self 82 

Sonnets: XIX, ' Devouring Time' 83 

XXIX, 'When in disgrace with fortune' 84 

XXXIII, 'Full many a glorious morning ' .... 84 

LX, * Like as the waves ' 85 

LXXI, ' No longer mourn for me ' 85 

CVI, * When in the chronicle of wasted time ' . . . 86 

CXVI, * Let me not to the marriage of true minds ' . 86 

CXXX, * My mistress eyes ' 87 

* Under the Greenwood Tree ' . 95 

Man's Ingratitude 95 

' It was a Lover and his Lass ' 96 

* O Mistress mine where are you Roaming ' 122 



INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 315 

FASB 

Shakespeare, William: 

Dirge of Love 122 

' How should I your true love know ' 128 

Song ^ZZ 

To Bacchus US 

« Hark, hark the lark ' " U? 

Dirge, 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun' 147 

A Sea Dirge 1 54 

Ariel" s Song 1 54 

Orpheus 1^4 

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554 — i5 75?— 15S6) : 

Wooing Stuff 9 

Ditty, Heart-Exchange 10 

Sonnet, To Sleep " 

First Song i' 

Sonnet XXXI, ' With how sad steps, O moon ' 13 

XXXIX, 'Come Sleep, O Sleep' 13 

LXXXIV, Highway since you my chief Parnassus be . 14 

XC, Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame ... 14 

A Dirge, Love is Dead ^S 

Southwell, Robert (1562 — > — 1595) = 

Scorn not the Least 68 

The Burning Babe 69 

Man's Civil War 7© 

Spenser, Edmund (1553 — 1569? — 1599) = 

Perigot and Willie's Roundelay S 

Sonnet XXXVII, 'What guile is this' 62 

LV, * So oft as I her beauty do behold ' 63 

LXV, ' The doubt which ye misdeem ' 63 

LXXXI, 'Fair is my love' 64 

Prothalamion 7° 

Sylvester, Joshua (1563 — 1590 — 1618): 

Sonnet, ' Were I as base ' 126 

Tychborne, Chidick (executed 1 586) : 

Lamentation *7 

Vautor, Thomas {c. 1 61 9): 

' Sweet Suffolk owl' 198 



31.6 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 



'AGE 



Vere, Edward, Earl of Oxford (1545? — 1576 — 1604): 

Fancy and Desire 8 

* If women could be fair ' 33 

Walton^ Isaac (l 593 — 1640 — 1683) : 

A Farewell to the Vanities of the World 188 

Watson, Thomas (1557 — 1581 — 1592?): 

Passions : XXXVII, * If Jove himself ' 23 

C, * Resolved to dust' 23 

Webster, John (? — 1601 — 1625): 

Dirge, ' Call the robin ' 145 

Dirge, ' Hark, now everything is still * 156 

Weelkes, Thomas ( ? — 1 597 — ? ) : 

Madrigal, Beauty'' s Triumph II2 

Wilbye, John ( ? — 1 598 — ? ) : 

Madrigal, ' Lady, when I behold ' 90 

All in N'aught 148 

Song, * Love me not for comely grace ' 149 

Wither, George (1588 — 1612 — 1667): 

'Shall I wasting in despair' 168 

' Hence away, you Sirens ' 201 

Wit Restored: 
Phillada flouts me 157 

WoTTON, Sir Henry (1568 — 1600? — 1639): 

The Character of a Happy Life 166 

On his Mistress, Elizabeth of Bohemia 200 

Yonge, Nicholas ( ? — 1 588 — ? ) : 
Madrigal, ' Brown is my love ' 83 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



Numerals in heavy-face type indicate matter critical and biographical. For 
bibliographical completeness the sources of the poems of the text are included 
in this i7tdex. 



Abbott, Shakespearian Grammar, 
215, 216, 218, 219, etc., through- 
out. 

Alalia, J. C.'s, xvii, xviii. 

Alexander, Sir W., Iv, Ivii ; Aurora, 
xvii, Iviii. 

Alexandrine, xlii, xliii, Ixiii. 

Alison, Richard, An Hour's Rec- 
reation, 140. 

alliteration, 1, Ixviii. 

Amaltheus, Jerome, 291. 

amatory verse, xv, xvi, xviii. 

anapaestic metre, xli, 212, 287. 

Anglia, xi. 

anthologies, poetical, see miscel- 
lanies. 

Arber, Professor, edd. : Barnfield, 
249, 250 ; English Garner, Iviii, 
232, 247, 282 ; Euphues, 223, 
246 ; Fragmenta Regalia, 220, 
267 ; Gascoigne's Certain Notes, 
xl, 214; Handful of Pleasant 
Delights, A, Ixvii, 225; Putten- 
ham, xi, xl, xli, 215; Watson, 
224 ; Works of Capt.John Smith, 
288. 

Areopagus Club, Hi, Ixix. 

Aristenetus, Epistles, 266. 

Arnold, Mr. W. T., in Ward's 
English Poets, 282. 



Ascham, R.,xiii ; The Scholemaster, 
X, xi. 

Ashmolean MS., 94. 
Aubrey, Memoirs, 294. 

Bacon, P^ancis, xxxvi, 296; Sylva 

Sylvarum, 248. 
Baldi, Bernardino, 276. 
Barley, W., New Book ofTabliture, 

82, 241, 246. 
Barnes, Barnabe, xvi, xxxviii, Iv, 

Ivii, Iviii, Ixi, 233, 236, 245, 247 ; 

A Divine Century, xvii, xviii, 8 1 ; 

Parthenophil and Parthenope, 

xvii, Iviii, 56, 236. 
Barnfield, Richard, xv, xxv, xxvii, 

xl, xliv, 249 ; Cynthia, xvii, xviii ; 

Encomion of Lady Pecunia, 250 ; 

Poems in Divers Humors, 87, 

250. 
Bateson, Thomas, xxxiii, xlviii, 

268; First Set of Madrigals, 

132; Second Set, 190. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, xxxi, li-, 

Knight of the Burning Pestle, 

153, 275, 278; The Maid's 
Tragedy, 148, 273. 
Beaumont, Francis, xxxiii, xxxv, 

Ixix, 273, 276, 277, 278, 283 ; 

Masque of the Inner Temple, 161 , 



318 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



278; Poems, 170, 282 ; Salmacis 
and Hermaphroditus, 278. 

Bell, Poems of Greene, Iviii, Ixiii. 

Bell, Songs of the Dramatists, 260. 

Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature, 274. 

Belvedere or the Garden of the 
Muses, XXV. 

bergeret, lii. 

Best, Charles, 217. 

Biadene, Morfologia del Sonetto, lix. 

Blount, Lylfs Dramas, 222. 

Bolton, E., Iviii, 258 ; Hypercritica, 
242, 257. 

Bonnefons, Jean, 274. 

brawle, liii. 

Breton, Nicholas, xiv, xv, xxiv, 
xxxviii, xl, xliv, xlvii, xlix, liii, 
Ix, 211, 226, 227, 241 ; Arbor of 
Amorous Devises, xvii, xviii, xxv, 
64, 240 ; Bower of Delights, 
xxiv, 8,^214; Honorable Enter- 
tainment, 47, 233 ; Souls Har- 
mony, xvii, xviii, 124. 

Brooke, Lord, see Greville. 

Brown, Professor, An Early Rival 
of Shakespeare, 226, 232. 

Brow^ne, William, xxxiv, xxxv, xl, 
xlviii, 1, Ixix, 235, 280, 281, 287, 
294 ; Britanyiid's Pastorals, lii, 
174; C(xlia,x\x, 177, 284; Inner 
Temple Masque, 167, 280 ; 
Visions, xix, 284. 

Brumbaugh, Professor, A Study 
of the Poetry offohn Donne, 256. 

Brydges, Sir E., edd. : Browne, 
283 ; Paradise of Dainty Devises, 
214. 

Bullen, Mr. A. H., edd. : Campion, 
xliii, xlvi, 262, 263, 271, 289; 
Drayton, 277, 285, 292 ; Eng- 
land's Helico7i, liii, 239, 257 ; in 



Goodwin's Browne, 284 ; Lyrics 
from Elizabethan Romances, xlix, 
213, 226, 227, 252, 257; Lyrics 
from Elizabethan Song Books, 
xxvi, xlii, liv, 239, 246, 262, 263, 
278, 279, 289, 290 ; Lyrics from 
the Dramatists, 223, 236, 277, 
278 ; More Lyrics, xxviii, xlii, 
274, 293, 296, 297 ; Old English 
plays, 264 ; Poetical Rhapsody, 
243, 266. 
Byrd, W., xxviii, Iv, 224, 230, 262, 
275; Songs of Sundjy Natures, 
39 ; Psalms, Sonriets and Sojigs, 
xxvi, 33, 155, 229. 

Caine, Mr. T. Hall, Softnets of 
Three Centuries, Ixiv, 272, 292. 

Campion, Thomas, xxvi, xxviii, 
xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xxxviii, xlvi, 
1, Ixvi, Ixvii, 262, 279, 283, 294 ; 
Fourth Book of Airs, 187, 262, 
271, 289 ; Observations in the 
Art of English Poetry, 233, 262 ; 
Third Book of Airs, 185, 271, 
288, 289 ; Two Books of Airs, 
164. 

canzon, liv, Iviii. 

canzonet, Iviii, lix. 

Carew, Thomas, xxi, xxxiii, 255, 
265, 294. 

Caroline poets, xxxv. 

Chapman, George, xix, xxv, xxx, 
223, 251, 260, 277, 294; Bussy 
a'Ambois, 236, 263 ; Coronet for 
his Mistress, A, xvii, xviii, xx, 
xxxi ; Hero and Leander, 90, 
251, 252 ; Homer, 238, 244. 

C happen, Early English Popular 
Music, xi, xxvii, 212, 235, 253, 
263, 272, 284. 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



319 



characteristics of Elizabethan lit- 
erature, xxxvii. 
Charles I, xxxv, 272, 297. 
Chaucer, 230, 235, Ca7iterbury 

Tales, 292, 293 ; Troilus, 217. 
Chester's Lovers Martyr, xxv, 1 1 5, 

260. 
Chettle, Henry, xxxvi, 243, 252, 

253 ; Piers Flamness, 71. 
Christ Church, MS., 199. 
Church, R. W., ed. Spenser, lii. 
Churchyard, Thomas, xxiv. 
classical influences ; general, xvi; 

Ixix; metrical, xxxviii, xxxix, lii. 
classic reaction, xxxi, xxxii. 
classical parallels, 263, 266. 
Collectanea Anglo- Foetica, 226. 
Collier, J. P., 229, 278 ; edd. : 

Memoirs of Alley n, 280 ; Spenser, 

214, 244. 
commonplace-books of poetry, 

xxiv. 
compound words, 217. 
Constable, Henry, xv, xvii, Ixi, 

Ixiv, 238, 257 ; Diana, xvii, 

xviii, Ixii, 248; Sonnets from 

Todd's MS., Ixv, 248 ; Spiritual 

Sonnets, xvii, xviii. 
Contemporary Latin parallels, 274, 

291. 
Cook, Professor, 234. 
Cosens MS., 27. 
couplet, liv, Ix ; concluding couplet, 

Ix, Ixi. 
court influence on the lyric, xi, xii. 
Cowley, xxi. 

Crashaw, R., xxi, xxxiv, 283. 
Crowne, J., Ixvii, 

Crown Garland of Roses, The, Z'](i, 
Cunningham, ed. Drummond, 285. 
Cunningham, ed. Jonson, 226, 267. 



dactylic metre, xli. 

Daniel, John, Songs, 141, 271. 

Daniel, Samuel, xvii, xx, xxiii, 
xxix, xxxv, Ivii, Ixi, Ixiii, Ixvi, 
233, 234, 235, 247, 279, 281; 
Civil Wars, xxiii ; Defense of 
Rime, 262, 296 ; Delia, xvii, 
Ixii, 49, 217, 218, 238 ; Hymen's 
Triumph, 165 ; Queen's Arcadia, 
The, lii; Tethys' F^estival, 153, 

275- 

Davenant, Ixvii. 

Davies, Sir John, Sonnets to Phil- 
omel, xvii, xxvi. 

Davison, Francis, xxi, xxxv, xlvii, 
Ixix, 243, 244. 

decasyllabic metre, xliii, xliv, Iviii. 

Dekker, Thomas, xxix, xxxi, xxxvi, 
1, Ixix, 232, 252, 265 ; Captives, 
The, 265 ; Noble Spanish Soldier, 
124; Old Fortunatus, 44, 232; 
Patient Grissell, 93, 253 ; Shoe- 
maker's Holiday, The, 92 ; Span- 
ish Fig, The, 265 ; Sun's Dar- 
ling, The, 269. 

Deloney, Thomas, Garland of 
Goodwill, 214. 

Desportes, Philippe, 213. 

Devereux, Robert, Earl of Essex, 
xxxvi, 232, 245, 253. 

Digby, Sir Kenelm, 290. 

Dodsley's Old Plays, 252. 

Donne, Dr. John, xxi-xxiii, xxvi, 
xxxiii, xxxv, xxxviii, xlviii, Ixii, 
Ixvi, Ixvii, Ixviii, Ixix, 222, 237, 
244, 245, 253, 254, 255, 256, 263, 
265, 289, 290; Holy Sonnets, xvii, 
142 ; Poems wi4h Elegies, 97. 

Dowden, Professor, Barnes, svi, 
236; ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets, 
246-24g passim. 



320 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



Dowland, John, xxviii, Iv, iii, 
131, 232, 258, 290. 

Drayton, Michael, xxiv, xxxv, Iii, 
Ivi, Ixi, Ixiii, 270, 277, 285, 292 ; 
Ba7-on''s War, xxiii, 292 ; Idea, 
xvii, xviii, lix, Ix, Ixiv, 247, 292 ; 
Poems, 136 ; Polyolbion, xxxiii, 
213. 

Drummond, William, xix, xxxiii, 
xxxiv, xxxv, xxxvi, xxxviii, xlvii, 
xlviii, Iv, 231, 234, 266, 276, 284, 
285, 286, 291 ; Flowers of Sion, 
205 ; Madrigals, 182 ; Poems, 
179 ; Ura7iia, Ixii. 

Dryd'en, John, Ixvii, Ixix, 255. 

Dyce, Alexander, edd. : Beaumont 
and Fletcher, 273 ; Greene and 
Peele, 229, 231 ; Shakespeare, 
232, 275, 278. 

Dyer, Sir Edward, 238. 

E. K.'s Glosse upon the Shep- 
herds' Calendar, 213, 214, 224. 

Elizabeth of Bohemia, 293. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, xii, 
xiii, 221, 223, 226, 231, 233, 243. 

Ellis, Specimens of the Early Eng- 
lish Poets, 215, 283. 

England^s Helicon, xxv, xxvi, liii, 
105, 224, 230, 233, 237, 238, 239, 
241, 243, 250, 257, 258. 

England's Parnassus, xxv. 

Essex, see Devereux. 

Este, Michael, Sixth Set of Books, 
200. 

Fair Maid of the Exchajzge, The, 
143, 272. 

Farnaby, Giles, 250, 296 ; Can- 
zonets, 90. 

Field, Nathaniel, xxxvi. 



Fleay, Mr. F. G., Biographical 
Chronicle of the English Drama, 
XXX, 232, 247, 251, 252, 265, 272, 
273, 276, 279, 291 ; Life oj 
Shakespeare, 278 ; Shakespeare 
Manual, xxx. 

Flecknoe, Richard, 274. 

Fletcher's, Dr. Giles, Chrisfs Vic- 
tory and Triumph, Iii ; Licia^ 
xvii. 

Fletcher, John, xxx, xxxiii, xxxv, 
xl, xliv, xlviii, Ixvii, Ixix, 234, 
277, 278, 283; Bloody Brother, 
The, 172, 268; Captain, The, 
162, 278; Faithful Shepherdess, 
The, Iii; Mad Lover, The, 191; 
Nice Valor, The, 163; Two 
Noble Kinsmen, 160; Valentin- 
ian, 172, 268, 277 ; Women 
Pleased, 199. 

Fletcher, Phineas, Purple Island, 
The, xxxiii, Iii. 

Fliigel, Dr. Ewald, Liedersamm- 
hingen des XVI. fahrhunderts, 
xi. 

Ford and Dekker's, Sun's Darling, 
The, 269. 

Ford, Thomas, 272, 297 ; Music 
of Simdry Kinds, 144. 

foreign influence, xii ; metrical, 
xxxviii, xxxix. 

Freeman, Kentish Poets, 294. 

French influence on the English 
lyric, xii, xxxviii, 213, 266. 

Furness, Dr. H. H., Variorum add.: 
As You Like It, 253; Hamlet, 267. 

Gatnmer Gurton^s Needle, xxix. 

Gascoigne, George, xii, xiii, 1, li, 
Ixii, 211, 240; Adventures of 
Master F. /., I ; Cei-tain Notes 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



321 



of Instruction, xl, 214; Grief of 
Joy, The, 230; Posies, i, 211; 
Steele Glas, The, 211. 

Gentleman^ s Magazine, The, 229. 

Gibbons, Orlando, 278, First Set 
of Madrigals, 161. 

Gifford, Qd.fonson, 266, 269, 274, 
287, 291. 

Goffe, Careless Shepherd, 291. 

Golden Garland of Princely De- 
lights, The, 272. 

Goodwin, Mr. G., ed. Browne, 280, 
284, 287, 294, 295. 

Googe, Barnabe, xii. 

Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inven- 
tions, A, xxiv. 

Gosse, Mr. Y,., Jacobean Poets, xxi, 
Ixvii, Ixviii, 239; Sidney in Con- 
temporary Rev., lii. 

Greaves, Thomas, Ivii, 132. 

Greene, Robert, xiii, xiv, xv, xxxviii, 
xl, xlvii, Iviii, Ix, Ixiii, 226, 229, 
232, 233, 241 ; Arbasto, 26; Fair- 
well to Folly, 47 ; Groatsworth 
of Wit, A, 226, 243; Menaphon, 
35 ; Motirning Garment, The, 
45; Pandosto, lii, 34, 229; Phi- 
lomela, 54 ; Rosalind, lii. 

Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke, xiii, 
XV, xvi, xxiii, Ix, Ixiii, 220, 293 ; 
Alaham, xxiii, 222 ; Ccelica, xvii, 
xviii, 16, 220; Life of Sidney, 
215; Mustapha, xxm. 

Griffin, Bartholomew, xxv, 234 ; 
Fidessa, xvii. 

Grimald, Nicholas, xxiv, 225. 

Grosart, Dr. A. B., edd.: Breton, 
XV, 226, 227, 233; Daniel, 234, 
275, 281 ; Donne, 254, 255, 259, 
262, 265 ; Fuller Worthies' Mis- 
cellany, 215, 228, 253; Greene, 



XV, 226, 233; Greville, 215, 220, 
222 ; Harvey, xiv ; Sidney, Ivii, 
Iviii, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 286; 
Spencer, xiii, Ixii, 216, 240; Syl- 
vester, 288. 

Groto, Luigi, 243. 

Grove, The, 265. 

Guarini, 233. 

Guittone, lix. 

Gummere, Professor, viii, 212. 

Habington's Castara, xix. 
Handful of Pleasant Delights, A, 

xii, xlvii, 24, 225. 
Hannah, Poems of Wotton, Raleigh, 

and Others, 212, 239, 253, 267, 

279, 282. 
Harleian MS., 185. 
Harrington, Henry, 296. 
Harrison's Description of England, 

275- 

Harvey, Gabriel, xiii, Ixix, 236. 

Haslewood, Ancient Critical Es- 
says, 214, 242, 257. 

Haughton, William, 253. 

Hazlitt, W. C, edd. : Browne, 294; 
Dodsle/s Old Plays, 252; Gas- 
coigne, Ixii, 211; Handbook to 
Early English Literature, 282 ; 
Herrick, 271, 281, 291 ; Warton's 
History of English Poetry, 281. 

Hazlitt, William, Lectures on the 
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. 
282, 286, 287, 288. 

hedonistic lyrical spirit, xxiii. 

hendecasyllabic verse, Iviii, Ixiii. 

Henry VIII, xi, xxvii. 

Henry, Prince, 275, 297. 

Henslowe, xxix, 269. 

heptasyllabic trochaic verse, xl, 
xliv, liii. 



322 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



Herbert, George, xxxiv, 245. 
Herrick, Robert, xxviii, xxxii, 
xxxiii, XXXV, Ixvii, Ixix, 237, 262, 

268, 271, 274, 281, 291. 
Heywood, John, xiii, 256. 
Heywood, Thomas, xxix, xxxvi, 

269, 272 ; Apology for Actors, 
236 ; Captives, The, 264 ; Dia- 
logues and Dramas, 269 ; Lives 
of All the Poets, 269 ; Lucrece, 

135. 239- 
Hilton, John, 283. 
Homer, 238, 244, 251, 261, 281. 
Hood, Thomas, 241. 
Horman's Vulgaria, 273. 
Howell, James, Familiar Letters, 

293- 
Hume, Tobias, 134, 269. 
Hunnis, xii. 
Hunt, Leigh, Book of the Sonnet, 

lix, Ixi, 247, 248, 249. 
Hunterian Club's Publications, 

212, 236, 250. 

iambic metre, xl, xli, xlii, xliii, xliv, 

xlvi, 211. 
Isaac, Dr. Hermann, 234, 247. 
Italian culture in England, x, xi. 
Italian influence on the lyric, x, xi, 

xii, xvi, xxxiv, xxxviii, xxxix, li, 

Ixviii, Ixix, 243, 246, 250, 276, 

286. 
Italian metrical forms, li-lxv. 
Italian sonnet forms, Ix, Ixi, Ixii. 

Jacobean poetical influence, xxxiii. 
James I, 233, 279, 293 ; Essays of 

a Prentice, xl. 
Jessop, Dr., 354. 
Johnson, Samuel, xxi, 255, 264. 
Jones, Inigo, 275. 



Jones, Robert, xxviii, xlii, 239, 263, 
271 ; Second Book of Songs, I2i ; 
Micses'' Garland of Delights, 151 ; 
Ultimiim Vale, 146. 

Jonson, Ben, xxiii, xxix, xxxi, 
xxxii-xxxvi passim, xxxviii, xli, 
xlv, xlvii, xlviii, Ivii, Ixvi, Ixvii, 
Ixix, 251, 259, 267, 280, 287, 291, 
294 ; Case is Altered, The, 233 ; 
Conversations, xxi, xxii, Ixvi, 242, 
254, 266, 270, 276, 280, 291 ; 
Cynthia's Revels, 1 1 3, 234, 266 ; 
Devil is an Ass, The, 183, 287 ; 
Discoveries, 260, 263, 267 ; Epi- 
grams, 127, 271, 273 ; Forest, 133, 
155, 260, 263, 267 ; Grammar, 
226; Hymencei, 261; Masque of 
Hymen, 251 ; Masque of Queens, 
150; May Lord, 291; New Inn, 
236, 263; Poetaster, 114, 266; 
Sad Shepherd, Hi, 194, 217, 291 ; 
Silejit Woman, 151 ; Under- 
woods, 192 ; Vision of Delight, 
184. 

King, Bishop Henry, 283. 
Kingsley, Charles, Raleigh, 267. 
Kittredge, Professor, 217, 221, 222, 
228, 235, 244, 261, 269, 274, 276, 

293- 
Korting, Encyclopddie der roma- 
nischen Philologie, liv. 

Lactantius, Elegia de Phoenice, 281 . 
Lamb, Charles, Elia, xv, 220, 282 ; 

Specimens of English Dramatic 

Poets, 222, 269, 272, 275. 
Lamberton, Professor, 296. 
Lang, Mr. Andrew, in Garnett's 

Elizabethan Songs in Honour of 

Love and Beauty, 238. 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



323 



Lanier, Science of English Verse, xl. 

Lansdowne MS., 175, 

Lefferts, Mr. M. C, 285. 

Lentino, Jacopo da, 246. 

Linton, Mr. W. J., Rare Poems, 
215. 233' 276, 277. 

Lodge, Thonias, xiii, xiv, xv, xxv, 
xxxviii,. xliii, xlvii, xlix, 1, lii, 
212, 218, 227, 239, 241, 270; 
Glauciis and Scilla, 212; Mar- 
garite of America, 55, 236 ; Phyl- 
lisy xvii, xviii, liii, 58, 239, 249 ; 
Rosalind, 29, 227, 253; Scilla' s 
Metamorphosis, 4 ; William Long- 
beard, 250. 

Longfellow, 271. 

Lowell, xxxii, 235, 270, 280, 281. 

Lyly, John, xiii, xiv, xxix, xxxi, 
xliv, xiv, xlvii, 222, 223, 224, 232, 
237* 252, 277 ; Alexander and 
Camp asp e, 19, 247 ; Euphues, 
xiv, 246 ; Gallathea, x\.v\ Midas, 
lii, 41 ; Mother Bombie, 42 ; 
Sappho and Phao, 21. 

Lynche's Diella, xvii. 

lyric defined, vii-ix. 

lyric gift, general, xxiii, xxix, xxxi, 
xxxvi. 

Macaulay, Mr. G. C, Francis Beau- 
mont, a Critical Study, 273, 275, 
278, 283. 

madrigal, liii, liv-lvii, Ixv. 

Main, English Sonnets, 235, 247, 
248,286,288,295,296; Treasury, 
288. 

Marlowe, Christopher, xv, xxv, 
xxxvi, li, 237, 251. 

Marot, Clement, 266. 

Marston, John, xxv, xxx, 260. 

Martelli, 236. " 



Martial, Epigrams, 260, 266, 273. 
Massinger, Philip, Ixvii, 264, 

288. 
Masson, Professor, Drummond, 

285, 286. 
Mayor, Chapters on English Metre, 

xli. 
measures, Elizabethan lyrical, 

xxxviii-lxix. 
Meres, Francis, Palladis Tamia, 

xvii, 247, 257, 270. 
Metaphysical School of Poetry, 

xxi, 255. 
Middleton, Thomas, 264, 272 ; 

Blurt, Master Constable, 123; 

Chaste Maid in Cheap side. A, 

227. 
Milton, xxi, Ixviii, 219, 281, 287 ; 

// Penseroso, 278 ; U Allegro, xli, 

278; Lycidas, 258; Paradise 

Lost, 255, 286. 
Minto, Characteristics of English 

Poets, 239. 
miscellany, the poetical, xi, xii, 

xxiv-xxvi. 
Montemayor, Diana, 275. 
Morley, Thomas, Iv, Ivi, 262, 263 ; 

Ballets, Ivi ; Canzonets, Ivi ; First 

Book of Madrigals, 229. 
MS. Cottoni Postuma, 9. 
Munday, Anthony, xv, xxix, xxxvi, 

252,257, 258; Banquet of Dainty 

Conceits, xxv; Deatli of Robert 

Earl of Huntington, 92; Pri- 

maleon of Greece, 258. 
Musarum Deliciae, 277. 
Muses'* Library, The, 222. 
music, popularity of, xxvi, xxvii. 

Nashe, Thomas, xvii, xxix, xxxvi, 
xlix, 1, 219, 235, 236, 239; Son- 



324 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



nets after Astrophel, 48, 234; 
Summer's Last Will, 51, 236. 

Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, 220, 
267. 

Nicolas, Sir N. H., ed. Poetical 
Rhapsody, 217, 239, 243, 279. 

Nichols, Progresses of Queen Eliza- 
beth, 231. 

Notes and Queries, 245, 269, 279, 
294. 

occasional verse, the sonnet as, 

xvii. 
octosyllabic metre, xliv, xlv, liii, 

Ixiii. 
Oliphant, Thomas, Musa Madri- 

galesca, liv, Iv, Ivii, 229, 230, 231, 

246, 250, 259, 268, 272, 274, 275. 
origin of the English lyric of art, 

X, xi. 
Osburne's Traditional Memoirs of 

the Reign of fames, 294. 
Overbury, Sir Thomas, Wife and 

Characters, 166, 279. 
overflow, xlvii, Ixiii. 
Ovid, 223, 234. 
Oxford, Earl of, see Vere. 
Oxford Music School MS., 112. 

Palgrave, F. T., Golden Treasury 
of English Lyrics, ix, 216, 227, 
228, 241, 248, 262, 269, 279. 

palinode, 258. 

Parabosco, -Girolimo, 224. 

Paradise of Dainty Devises, xii, 
xiii, xxiv, 214, 220, 226. 

Passionate Pilgrim, The, xxv, xxx, 
57, 224, 237, 249. 

pastoral lyric, the, xiv, xv, li, lii, 
liii, 227. 

pastoral mode, lii, liii. 

pauses, xlv, Ixviii. 



Pearson, ed. Dekker's Dramatic 

Works, 252. 
Peele, George, xiii, xiv, xxix, 223, 

224, 229; Arraig7iment of Paris, 

The, xiv, lii, 20, 223, 230; Poly- 

hytnnia, 42. 
Peerson, Martin, xxxiii, 293. 
Pembroke, The Countess of, xxxiv, 

276, 294. 
Percy, W., Ccelia, xvii. 
Percy Folio MS., 212. 
Percy Society^s Publications, Ivii, 

246, 258. 
Petrarch, xi, Iviii, lix, Ixiv, 240. 
Petronius Arbiter, 263. 
Phillips, Edward, Theatrum Poeta- 

rum, 287. 
Philostratus, 269. 
Phoenix^ Nest, The, xxv, xxvi, 60, 

239- 
phrasing, metrical, xlvi, xlvii, li. 
Pilkington, Francis, Book of Airs, 

xxvi, 257. 
Plato, Charmides, 266. 
playing on words, 219. 
Pocahontas, 288. 
Poe's The Poetic Principle, ix. 
Poetical Rhapsody, The, xxi, xxv, 

xxvi, Iv, 72, 217, 239, 262,265, 

266. 
Politian, 235. 
Pope, Alexander, Ixix. 
poulter's measure, xiii, xliii, Ixiii, 

214. 
Propertius, 263. 
Puttenham, Art of English Poetry, 

xi, xl, xli, 10, 214, 215. 

Quadrio, Ixiv. 

quatorzain, liii, lix, Ixi, Ixii, Ixiii. 

Quarterly Review, 246. 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



325 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, xiii, xviii, xxv, 

xxxvi, xli, Ixiii, 211, 212, 228, 

237, 267, 279, 282, 290, 296 ; 

Prei'ogative of Parliament, 188; 

Remains, 129. 
Ravenscroft,T., I'j i^\ Deuteromelia, 

149. 
Rawlinson MS., 3. 
Reed, Professor Henry, British 

Poets, 292. 
redundance of syllables, xliv. 
refrain, 1. 

religious sentiment, xviii. 
Renaissance spirit, xvi, xxxix. 
Rimbault's Bibliotheca Madriga- 

liana, Ivii, 246, 262, 263, 269, 

271, 272, 294. 
rime, xlviii, xlix, 1, Ix, Ixiii. 
rime royal, Ixiii. 
Rispetto, influence of the, on the 

madrigal, Iv. 
Rosseter, Philip, 262, 263 ; Book 

of Airs, 118. 
Rossetti, Christina, 290. 
Rossetti, D. G., xxi, 292. 
roundelay, liii, 213. 
Rowley, Samuel, 265 ; Spanish 

Fig, The, 265. 
run-on lines, xlvii. 
Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, xv, 219. 

Saintsbury, Mr. G., Elizabethan 
Literature, 215, 217, 234, 254, 
255; Seventeenth Century Lyrics, 
256, 259, 266, 296. 

Salisbury Cathedral MS., 178. • 

Sandys, Ixix. 

Schipper's Englische Metrik, 
xxxviii, xl, liv, Iv, Ivi, Iviii, lix. 

Selden, John, 256, 280. 

Seneca, 233, 234, 261. 



septenary, xlii, xliii. 

sestine, liv, Iviii. 

Shakespearean manner, the, xxxiii. 

Shakespearean sonnet, Ixi. 

Shakespeare, xix, xx, xxiii, xxix, 
XXX, xxxi, xxxiii, xl, xlii, xliv, 
xlviii, xlix, Ixi, Ixii, Ixvi, Ixvii, 
Ixix, 212, 217, 219, 234, 243. 249, 
253, 260, 267, 277, 293; Airs 
Well, XXX ; A and C, 145, 257, 
260 ; A. V. L., xlvi, 95, 253, 
263 ; Coriol., 249 ; Cymb., 147, 
247, 273 ; Hamlet, 128, 211, 248, 
267 ; / Hen. IV, 230, 249 ; 
Hen. V, XXX, 295; Hen. VIII, 
164, 2j^;John, 248 ; /. C, 288; 
Lear, 249, 258 ; L. L. L., xxx, 
43, 247 ; M.for M., 133 ; M. of 
v., Ixvi, 82, 270; Merry Wives, 
264, 290 ; M. N D., xlii, xlix, 
233, 263, 274, 287 ; Rich. II, 
xxx, 274 ; Rich. Ill, 218, 288 ; 
R. a7id J., xxx ; Sonnets, xvii, 
xviii, Ixiii, 83, 216, 217, 246-249 
passim, 263, 273; T. the Sh., 
289; Tetnpest, Ixvi, 154, 215, 
272; T. N., xlvi, 122, 264; 
Two Gentlemen, 56 ; W. T., 
229. 

Sh a kespea re- fa hrbtich, 234. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, xiii, xiv, xv, 
xvi, xvii, XX, xxiii, xxxv, xxxviii, 
xliii, xliv, xlix, 1, li, Hi, Iv, Ivii, 
Ixi, Ixii, 211, 214, 215, 224, 234, 
275, 284; Arcadia, xiv, lii, Iviii, 
II, 216, 218, 286; Astrophel and 
Stella, xiv, xvi, Ixii, Ixiii, 11, 216, 
219, 220, 244, 249, 296 ; Defense 
of Poesy, 217. 

Smith's Chloris, xvii. 

Smith, Captain John, 288. 



526 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



Sommer, ed. The Shepherds' Calen- 
dar, 213. 

song books, xxvi-xxviii. 

songs of the dramatists, xxviii- 
xxxi, xliv, Ixix. 

song writers, xxviii, xliv. 

sonnet, xvi-xxi, xliii, xliv, liii, lix- 
Ixv, 217, 219, 234, 240, 246. 

sonnet sequences, xvi-xviii. 

Southwell, Robert, xxxvi, xlii, 234, 
241, 242 ; Ma-nicB, 70, 242 ; 
Sai7tt Peter'' s Complaint, 68, 242. 

Spenser, Edmund, xiii, xv, xx, xxi, 
xxxiii, xxxiv, xlv, 1, 11, lii, Ivii, 
Ixi, Ixvii, Ixviii, Ixix, 214, 219, 
235* 270 ; Amoretti, xvii, xviii, 
Ixiv, 240, 285 ; Faery Queen, 
xviii, xxxix, li, lii, Ixi, 269, 276, 
280, 281; Prothalamtott, li, 76, 
213, 244; Shepherds' Calendar, 
xii, xiv, li, lii, 213, 214, 224, 245. 

Spenserian stanza, xliii, li. 

Spenserians, the, xxxiv. 

Spenser's link sonnet, Ixi. 

Spenser Society's Publications, 
xxxiv, 292, 295. 

Stedman, Mr. C. E., Nature of 
Poetry, viii. 

Storojenko, Professor, Robert 
Greene, 226. 

Strode, W., 278. 

Stubbes, Y\)SS\-^, Anatomy of Abuse, 
268. 

subjective interpretation, xviii. 

subjective quality, vii, viii, xv. 

Suckling, Sir John, 288. 

Surrey, Earl of, xi, xl, Ivii, Ixi, Ixii. 

Swinburne, Mr. A. C. ; Chapman, 
251 ; fonson, A Study of, xli, 259, 
261, 266, 276, 287, 290, 291 ; 
Shakespeare, 246, 250, 269. 



Sylvester, Joshua, xxvi, 225, 263, 
266, 288. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 235, 271, 293. 

terzine, liv, Ivii. 

Teutonic metres, old, xxxviii, 

xxxix. 
Thackeray, W. M., The Newcomes, 

232. 
Theatre of Voluptuous Wordlings, 

The, xiii. 
Thomson, J. M., 266. 
TotteVs Miscellany, xi, xii, xxxviii. 
tournament sonnets, xx, 234. 
trochaic metre, xl, xli, xlii, xliii, 

xliv, xlvi. 
Turberville, xii. 

TurnbuU, ed. Drummond, 285. 
Tychborne, Chidick, xxxvi, 226. 

unrimed lyric, Ixiii. 

variation of foot, xlv, xlvi. 

Vaux, Lord, xi. 

Vaughan, Henry, 278, 296, 297. 

Vautor, Thomas, 293.- 

Verses in Praise and foy, etc., 

27. 
Vere, Edward, Earl of Oxford, 

xxxvi, xliii, 215, 228. 
Virgil, 289. 
Volkslyrik, viii. 

Waddington, English Sonnets by 
Poets of the Past, 245 ; English 
Sonnets by Living Writers, lix 
(on the sonnet). 

Walton, Izaak, xxii, 254; Complete 
Angler, 188, 237, 289; Lives, 
xxiii. 

Ward, English Poets, 238, 282. 



INDEX OF INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 



327 



Warner, G. F., Catalogue of Dul- 
wich College^ 280. 

Warton, Thomas, History of Eng- 
lish Poetry, 281. 

Wastle, Simon, 283. 

Watson, Thomas, xiii, xiv, xvi, 
xxxviii, liv, Ivii, Ix, 219, 224-226, 
236, 249 ; Passionate CeJitury of 
Love, xvii, 23 ; Tears of Fancy, 
xvii, xviii. 

Webbe, William, Defense of Eng- 
lish Poetry, 214, 257. 

Webster, John, xxxi, xxxiii, li, 
272, 275; Duchess of Malfi, 
The, 156; Vittoria Corombona, 

145- 

Weckherlin, G. R., 279, 280. 

Weelkes, T., 259; Madrigals, \i 2. 

Whalley, ed. fonson, 291, 294. 

Whetstone, George, xiii. 

Whitney, Geoffrey, Choice of Em- 
blems, 232. 

Wilbye, John, Ixiii, 250 ; Madri- 



gals, 90; Second Set of Madrigals, 

148. 
Willoughby's Avisa, xviii. 
Winchester, Professor, 260, 264, 

291. 
Wither, George, xxxiv, xxxv, 

xxxviii, xl, xlviii, 1, 218, 281, 

282, 294, 295 ; Fidelia, r68 ; 

Phir arete, xix, 201. 
Wit Restored, 157, 278. 
lVit''s Treasury, 276. 
Wood, Anthony ^, 224. 
Wordsworth, xxi, xxxiv, 259, 272. 
Wotton, Sir Henry, xxiii, xxvi, 

279, 280, 290; Reliquiae Wotton- 

ianae, 226, 279, 289. 
Wright, W., Aldis, 248, 253, 264. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, xi, xvi, xl, 



Yonge, Nicholas, 246; Musica 
Transalpina, Iv, 83. 



Zepheria, xvii. 



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investigation. The book discusses, with abundant 
references and illustrations, the various causes that 
brought about the transitions of taste from Classi- 
cism to Romanticism — such as the Spenserian revival, 
the influence of Milton's minor poetry, the love of 
mediaeval life, the revival of ballad literature, the study 
of Northern mythology, etc. It is believed that this 
book is a contribution to our knowledge of English 
literary history ; and it will be especially valuable to 
advanced classes of students who are interested in 
the development of literature. The treatment is 
historical rather than argumentative. 



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Outline of the Philosophy of English Literature 

By GREENOUGH WHITE, A.M., B.D., 

Author of "A Sketch of tht Philosophy of A merican Literaiurt.^* 

Part I : The Middle Ages. 



12mo. Cloth. vi + 266 pages. Introduction price, $1.00. 



The motive of this treatise is to determine the bounds of the 
great historical divisions of English literature, to discover the 
salient features, the peculiar characteristics of each epoch, to 
trace the connection in thought between each, and to view all 
against a background of European history, literature, and art. 
It is believed that the causes of historic change, the principles 
that control the succession of ages, the revolutions of thought, 
sentiment, and action, are here clearly discriminated ; so that 
in this little book, in a word, a sound philosophy of mediaeval 
history is suggested. 

W. J. Courthope, Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford: 
It would be quite impertinent in me to criticise the manner in which 
the work has been executed, but I may be allowed to express my admira- 
tion of the orderly manner in which its very diverse materials are 
arranged and of the agreeable style in which the narrative is conducted. 
To accomplish this result in so vast a subject as English literature as a 
whole is in itself a proof of the most skillful workmanship, and I cannot 
too strongly express my conviction that this comprehensive survey is 
based upon sound knowledge and just reasoning. 

Edward Dowden, Professor of English^ Trinity College., Dublin : It 
interested me much, and seemed to me something new and needful, — 
not merely a work of erudition, but a contribution towards interpreting 
the results of erudition — a book not merely of knowledge, but of ideas. 
. . . Especially on this ground — as an elucidation of knowledge — I 
value the work. The way in which it keeps the European movement 
present to the reader's mind, with England as having a part in it, is of 
great importance. 

Edmund Gosse, Author of a'''' History of English Literature in the 
Eighteenth Century'' etc. : I have read the book with pleasure. It 
appears to me to deal freshly and brilliantly with the old, worn lines of 
history. 

Leslie Stephen, Author of^* Hours in a Library " etc. : The design is 
good, the style is good, and the matter interesting. 

Alois Brand!, Professor of English at the University of Berlin: 
Whites Buch voll allgemeiner Bildung sich zeigt — . . . drei Viertel [?] 
der Darstellung gelten politischen oder kontinentalen Verhaltnissen. 
Gefallen hat mir eine Bemerkung liber Chaucers 'gentle pite' und 
* pitous joye ' (S. 81-2). 

6INN & COMPANY, Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago, London. 



REFERENCE BOOKS ON POETRY 

A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics. Selected and edited by Professor 
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Old English Ballads. Selected and edited by Professor F. B. Gummere 
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Introduction to the Poetry of Robert Browning. By Professor William 
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Thomson. With Lives and Notes. Cloth. 704 pages. List 
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Sidney's Defense of Poesy. Edited by Professor Albert S. Cook of 
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Shelley's Defense of Poetry. Edited by Professor Albert S. Cook 
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price, 60 cents. 

Cardinal Newman's Essay on Poetry. With reference to Aristotle's 
Poetics. Edited by Professor Albert S. Cook of Yale Uni- 
versity. 36 pages. List price, 30 cents; mailing price, 35 cents. 

The Art of Poetry. The Poetical Treatises of Horace, Vida, and 
Boileau, with the translations of Howes, Pitt, and Soame. Edited 
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Addison's Criticisms on Paradise Lost. Edited by Professor Albert 
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^i.oo; mailing price, ^i.io. 

What is Poetry? By Leigh Hunt. Edited by Professor Albert S. 
Cook of Yale University. 98 pages. List price, 50 cents; 
mailing price, 60 cents. 

A Primer of English Verse. By Professor Hiram Corson of Cornell 
University. 232 pages. List price, ^i. 00; mailing price, ^i. 10. 

A Hand-Book of Poetics. By Professor F. B. Gummere of Haverford 
College. 250 pages. List price, $1.00; mailing price, $1.10. 

Characteristics of the English Poets. From Chaucer to Shirley. By 
William Minto. List price, $1.50; mailing price, ;^ 1.65. 



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T 



THE 

BEST ELIZABETHAN PLAYS 

Edited, with an Introduction, by 
WILLIAM R. THAYER 

611 pages. For introduction, $1.25 

*HE selection comprises The Jew of Malta, by Marlowe ; 
^ The Alcheinist, by Ben Jonson ; Philaster, by Beaumont 
and Fletcher ; The Two Noble Kins7nen, by Fletcher and Shakes- 
peare ; and The Duchess of Malfi, by Webster. It thus affords 
not only the best specimen of the dramatic work of each of the 
five Elizabethan poets who rank next to Shakespeare, but also a 
general view of the development of English drama from its rise in 
Marlowe to its last strong expression in Webster. This book has 
long been needed, and seems to be unanimously welcomed and 
recommended by the professors of English literature. We present 
as a specimen of their opinions the following letter. 

From Professor ALBEI<T S. COOK of Yale University. 

New Haven, May 17, 1890. 
Dear Sirs : You have done well in bringing out Thayer's edition of 
"The Best Elizabethan Plays." It will naturally be the book first 
resorted to by those who have gained some familiarity with Shakes- 
peare, and who wish to compare and contrast him with his great, 
though lesser, rivals. It is to this edition they will turn, because they 
can nowhere else find the same masterpieces, or so large a number of 
equally fine ones, in so cheap, convenient, and well-printed a volume, 
undisfigured by the coarseness of expression which occasionally sullied 
the pages of the original editions, and which we are less willing than 
the Elizabethans to condone, in view of the vigor and high imagination 
in which the dramas of this period abound. 

Very truly yours, 
Messrs. Ginn & Company. ALBERT S. COOK. 



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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE METHODS 
AND MATERIALS OF LITERARY CRITICISM. 

By Charles Mills Gayley, Professor of the English Language and Literature 

in the University of California, and Fred Newton Scott, Junior 

Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan. 

Volume I. THE BASES IN AESTHETICS AND POETICS. 

i2mo. Cloth. 587 pages. For introduction, $1.25. 

Volume II. LITERARY TYPES. lln preparation. 

Consulting the needs both of special students of criticism 
and of those who desire a working basis for the critical study of 
Literature as related to Art, this work aims to cover, in a helpful 
way, the field of Literary Theory. 

The plan of each chapter embraces (r) a discussion of such 
problems as the topic in hand presents for consideration, (2) a 
comprehensive bibliography, with critical commentary on each 
important reference, (3) suggestions for special investigation. 
While the work is not intended to set forth any special system of 
criticism, being rather a clue to the sources which will acquaint 
the student with any or all systems, yet some pains has been 
taken to distinguish, in the commentary, those theories which are 
thought to rest upon a sound scientific and aesthetic basis. 

Following are the subjects of the chapters in Volume I. : 

I. Theory of Criticism ; 2. History of Criticism ; 3. Theory of Art ; 
4. Development of Art ; 5. Theory of Literature ; 6. Comparative Litera- 
ture ; 7. Theory of Poetry ; 8. The Historical Study of Poetry ; 9, The 
Historical Study of Poetics; 10. Principles of Versification. Appendix : 
Bibliography of Aristotle's Poetics. 

The volume contains a full and carefully classified index to authors 
and works. 

The chapters of Volume II. upon Literary Types cover 
the following subjects : 

The Theory and History of the Lyric ; the Theory and History 
of the Epic; the Theory of Tragedy: — the Dramatic Problem (Con- 
ception, Collision, and Catastrophe), the Construction (Ancient and 
Modern Canons of Unity and Technique), the Effect (Classified theories 
of the Catharsis) ; the Theory of Comedy ; the Historic Development 
of the Drama ; Minor Types of Poetry ; Prose and its Artistic Types ; 
the Theory and History of Romance and Novel ; Phrases of Literary 
Development: — Classicism, Romanticism; Realism, Idealism; Modern 
Literary Movements. [ Volume II. is in preparation. 



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